"I learned a lot at Juilliard---I started in the pre-college division when I was 9 years old and finished my bachelor’s there at 22---but I think it’s really more about what you do with your training once you get out. It takes a lot of work and a lot of time to play well, so of course I practice every day. You’re always building. However good a piece sounds, you’re always thinking about how to make it better, more complete. It’s good to have intelligent fingers that can move on the keys, but the bigger goal is to say something with the music. For me, that something is love and its expression in terms of my own life. As a musician, I’ve always aspired to make use of the information that’s been passed on to me and then to tell the truth about myself in a way that relates to the truth of everybody else. I think that’s the work of all artists."
"In music, there’s the tremendous weight of tradition and what you do with it, and then there’s the creative side, where you do your own thing. Creative projects are what I've become most interested in. I’ve got a one-man opera project going on right now called The Cosmic Ladybug."