I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.

As a musician I'm kind of nomadic, Waldo-like. I show up in different places, and I'm witness to unbelievable things.

A Senegalese poet said 'In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.' We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage.

You go through phases. You have to reinvent reasons for playing, and one year's answer might not do for another.

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

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.