Chopin suffered from melancholia -- what today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder, ... And by the end of their time together Sand was his caretaker, his nursemaid, and she'd had enough. But she was a crucial force in his life -- the person who gave him a home, a family.

By the time I got to Chicago with 'Gershwin' I knew the stamina required, ... But this show has a whole different set of demands -- it's really a concert -- and I won't know how well I can sustain six performances a week until I perform it for a while.

The idea is to have the stage strewn with music from all the major songwriters and to let the members of the audience just pick their favorites,

For Chopin, everything was a pure expression of the soul and emotion, ... His playing had a silvery tone, and I've found it helpful to think of him as an early Debussy, with that exquisite airiness and shimmer.

We made the paper. But there was no time to get reaction, to do analysis, to find out what people in Ohio thought about what he said. And that's what local papers do that's so important. You're not going to hear those local voices on national television, or most of the Web sites people can access.

I want consistency over time -- the same processor, disk drive assemblies, BIOS, memory modules, graphics cards.