The academic area of new music or modern music festivals is not something which attracts me at all.
There's another way of making music by touching the lives and feelings of ordinary people.
It's rather like attending a university seminar where you are talking to a few gifted specialists who deliver a paper to an audience of their peers. That's one way of making music.
Over the years I have tried to develop something which is technically assured.
People like Arvo Part would not have been taken seriously 20 years ago.
I have friends who have a CD mastering plant in Hollywood and they are very sceptical about European record labels' understanding of digital technology.
One thing I'm doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces.
I remember once when I started writing for the alto saxophone a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola but louder.
Music history has flowed under the bridges for many years.
I am writing something which I find satisfying and which I am prepared to put my name to as a composer.
Craft is part of the creative process.
Writing tonal music now you are not writing into the 19th Century.
What was once underground is now coming to the surface.
Still American composers working in France have had a pretty hard time.
I've heard though that there is a younger generation of tonal French composers who are reacting with vigour.
I currently spend a lot of time thinking about orchestration and every detail of a piece.
I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.
I work very fast keeping the ideas flowing but making sure they come out the way I intended.
The project which we developed however was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician especially on a project for radio.
Similarly you can make a transition from one set of instruments to another imperceptibly.