I never liked opera growing up. I always liked chamber music or solo music even more than orchestral music.

All the music we know that's popular is actually commonly shared music that takes things that are similar about all of us.

I had grown up and gone to high school in New York, so I wanted to get out of the east coast.

I'd studied piano first and switched over to cello when I was about seven. I played mostly chamber and solo classical music. I got really involved with rock music when I was a teenager. I wired up my cello.

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

Why does every society seem to want to make music when it often seems like kind of a frill.

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