When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.

Once something is memorable, it's living and you're using it. That to me is the foundation of a creative society.

In performance, we have a greater purpose. The greater purpose is that we're communing together, and we want this moment to be really special for all of us. Because otherwise, why bother to have come at all? It's not about proving anything. It's about sharing something.

With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.

My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there's a place for culture.

Sound is ephemeral, fleeting, but some sort of a physical manifestation can help you hold on to it longer in time. I'm sure of this; I've always thought the sound that you make is just the tip of the iceberg, like the person that you see physically is just the tip of the iceberg as well.

When people ask me how they should approach performance, I always tell them the professional musician should aspire to the state of the beginner.