My message is to forget about dichotomies. The Brain Opera is an opera, even if it does not tell a story in the usual way. It is a psychological journey with voices - so I do consider it an opera.

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

When I was done with high school, I knew that music was really important to me and I knew I didn't want to be a cellist, but I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be a composer, or think about - I was just interested in the ideas behind music, I was interested in mathematics.

The Beatles realized that what they were making in the studio could never be performed. And they had already given up on performing because there were too many screaming fans and they were playing in larger and larger venues so they couldn't even hear what they were playing, it just wasn't any fun any more.

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.

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