For many people, music is here to let them forget the daily chores of life.

I maintain music is not here to make us forget about life. It's also here to teach us about life: the fact that everything starts and ends, the fact that every sound is in danger of disappearing, the fact that everything is connected - the fact that we live and we die.

I have loved Elliott Carter's music for many years.

They're a wonderful bunch of people. These young people share the strongest passion in their life, which is music. But there's no political plan or political line. There are people who come and become more tolerant, and others come and become more intolerant. But for the time they're there and working together it is almost a utopian republic.

Music means different things to different people and sometimes even different things to the same person at different moments of his life.

Music is not a profession. Music is a way of life - one that requires much professionalism.