The Hardest Thing About Traveling Is That

I Consider The First 20 Performances Just Learning The Piece. Think About It This Way: If You Think About A Pianist Who Plays A Schubert Sonata Through His Whole Lifetime - If You Listen To Rubenstein Or Horowitz Playing Their Repertoire Later In Their Life, You Understand The Richness With Which They Play That Music, And How Differently They Must Have Played It When They Were Younger.

But The Difference Between The Little Pieces And The Big Pieces - I'm Not Actually Sure Which Are The Little Pieces. With Some Of The Big Pieces, It's A Lot Of Musical Running Around, Whereas The Little Pieces, You Can Say Everything You Want To Say.

I, As A Young Guy Getting Out Of Music School, I Didn't Like The Prospect Of Spending My Life Writing Music For About 200 People.

I Shift Between Mediums Very Frequently. Instead Of Taking A Break From Writing, I Just Write In A Different Medium Or In A Different Way Or For A Different Purpose, So That I Don't Actually Stop Writing - I Just Go To Something Else. Like Going From A Big Symphony To A Piano Piece Is Great And Very Refreshing, I Find. And Then Going From That To A Big Concerto, And Then Having To Go Out And Play.

So The Real Drama For Me Is Balancing Live Performances And Writing, And One Of The Ways I Balance It Is I Write In Hotel Rooms. That's Not Exactly Balancing. Actually, Writing In Hotel Rooms Means That I'm Refusing To Deal With The Problem.