I've had a lot of fun writing percussion music. It feels quite similar to writing computer music. But I found myself in the role of choreographer in a way, worrying about physical movement and such.

I didn't want my music to be seen as examples of an electronic culture; I just wanted them to be thought of as pieces of music.

My perspective on the academic world is very favorable. I did certain kinds of things that I could never have done otherwise.

If the music has a logic of its own - as I think my music has - an open-minded listener will apprehend and understand.

I noticed things in my computer music that were getting old, and I started to figure out that this has to do with the way the listener interacts with music.

I think you'll find a significant number of people who decide not to enter competitions because their music just won't fit in that world.

I don't think there's something that you have to 'get' with my music. It tends toward the dramatic side rather than the narrative.

I don't think of my music as being about something.

I've been really fortunate to have Bridge Records interested in publishing my music for the past 25 years. Most of my music is available in their catalog.

It's very interesting for me to listen to music with my wife. She's not a musician but she very often makes comments about pieces in ways that are similar to what I'm thinking.

I came up in the '60s; that was a time when there was a revolution going on in music. Stravinsky had become a twelve-tone composer; even Aaron Copland was writing twelve-tone pieces at that time!

You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.

You're strictly a tulip girl—a red tulip girl.

You would have to be naive to think you can appear on television and not have the material edited in some way.

[On her seven-month-old son:] When people see me carrying him in the street they think I'm being attacked by a short, bald man. But it's just me with my little fat child.

I know I have a face like a model, but I’m actually just a goofy drama nerd underneath.

Usually I'm only using my instruments when I'm recording or playing a gig.

In the desert the most loved waters, like a lover's name, are carried blue in your hands, enter your throat. One swallows absence.

Keeping busy: This is a problem that you're glad to have.

[On public events attended by royalty:] It was the usual 'zoo tea.' You know, we eat - the others watch.

If you're a writer you know that the stories don't come to you, you have to go looking for them. The old men in the lobby: that's where the stories were.