"These works have changed me. I think it's allowed me to show more of my humanity."
"Having played a lot of his music, that it feels remarkably good to play at the instrument, which makes a lot of sense given his virtuosity."
"No one can play bass and sing like esperanza. Who can play all those flutes like Clare? The minute that they stop playing the piece it's gone."
"Malhaars are ragas that are designed to beckon rain...am I somehow beckoning the thing that I am trying to write about the disappearance of?"
"So much of what I've learned from these writers, from these musicians of the past, makes me the artist that I am today."
"I think if composers are being honest, whenever we assign a program to abstract instrumental music, we're always doing a little bit of myth-making."
"I just wanted people to experience this music in a primal and hypnotic way. Kind of going back to what made us fall in love with music in the first place."
"Trying to open people's hearts feels more politically useful than trying to convince people of something."
"There was a palpable feeling building in the audience that we knew she would make it to the finish line in breathtaking form."
"In some ways it's the most personal piece of mine because of that resonance with the land and with the history."