One of the things I like most of all is being in my study, in my barn, with absolutely no sound anywhere thinking about something. It's extremely important to me.

After a year, I thought gee I don't really need college anymore, which wasn't correct, but that's what I thought.

I love Bach, I love Beethoven, I love Mozart, I love the Beatles, I love you know, Stockhausen, I love many things. But for some reason I come back to Elizabethan music because it's a little bit like the Beatles.

England has had a lot of really bad periods of music, but it's had several amazing periods where they've found an incredible balance, not just between music that's a rather complex and also pretty direct. Like the Beatles.

The way I listen to music goes in waves depending on a lot of things. How busy I am, if I'm in between composition projects, if I'm starting a new project. So, the only time I listen to the radio for music is with my daughter's when I'm driving them to school, or driving them somewhere.

I think a double bass for me would be too much effort. But the cello, you're really engaged and the sound is kind of right here. So, it feels like being merged, married to an instrument.

I think the seed was planted when I was a teenager, and it took me until I got out of Juilliard. At Juilliard I was just learning to be a composer, but I was also learning how to manipulate computers.