That's the definition of popularity. Something that literally resonates with many, many people.

I've done a lot of operas. I've probably done more different kind of operas than anybody.

Music seems to stimulate more parts of our mind than almost every other activity. It combines more parts of our minds. It synchronizes our minds. It allows people in groups to do a non-verbal immediate activity together.

I started realizing that one of the great things about opera is that if you make the right kind of story, you can still have this kind of abstract subliminal quality to take you on a journey, but you can root it just enough in a particular situation, a particular kind of real situation that a person might have, or a particular context in the real world.

Nobody talks about music as having intrinsic meaning, how it engages the mind.

I listen to a lot of music that teenagers are listening to because I'm around them.

The barn where I work, it's only 15 minutes or so from Harvard square, so It's very close to the center of Boston, but it happens to be a total oasis. It's completely quiet in there.