From my perspective, music allows me to escape from the world of what is happening right in front of me... to the world of my thoughts, my dreams, my hopes and ideas - for the world, for my own life, for the day, even for the moment.

Music is as integral to me as my own DNA. My life has become a continual soundtrack, with music underscoring the most powerful and even the most banal moments of my life.

My music is my way to rearrange the world according to my own hopes.

The dog lives for the day, the hour, even the moment.

In a fit at the bookstore one day, I bought all my favourite composers' biographies: Schubert, Massenet, Wolf. I've still not had a chance to read them; it breaks my heart. But when you travel so much, you just can't take that many books with you.

Left to my own devices I'd get up at midday every day of my life.