One of my interests in music has always been what it means, why it affects us the way it does.

Perhaps 25 to 50 years from now, I can design a piece of music, no so that it appeals to something common in millions of people, but I can design the music so that it's exactly right for you and only you at this particular moment for your particular experience, things that have happened to you over 20 years, to you're particular mental state right now.

Works of art should be stimulating. They should wake people up rather than acting like a sedative.

I think that one of the things about music is it's supposed to be spontaneous, it's supposed to be real human beings bouncing off of each other whether its from the stage or to the audience, or jamming with friends.

I love the cello, I love the physical sense of an instrument that's about the size of your body that vibrates enough that even if you play an open string, you feel it.

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

it's important as a composer to sit in silence and imagine these complex musical worlds in your head, but it's also a wonderful experience to touch your music and to hear it and hear it in the room with you and to say, you can't have an entire orchestra there, but you'd kind of like to have the orchestra there.