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So many schools have cut the music classes out of their curriculum. We're trying to fill that gap by teaching the teachers how to educate the kids about their musical heritage.

Both of my mom's parents were music teachers, so I got a lot of knowledge about everything from classical music to jazz to musicals.

I came across a lot of young composers who have got passion but lack experience. I want to help them out.

When I was a kid, I wrote music - from the age of 11 until the age of 18.

When I was four years old, my mother put me into a school for early music education where you get perfect pitch and harmony and composition.

I would advise my young colleagues, the composers of symphonies, to drop in sometimes at the kindergarten, too. It is there that it is decided whether there will be anybody to understand their works in twenty years' time.

I think it's good for the composer to teach because you always have new students and you have to begin at the beginning and make things clear.

I had a really creative teacher at primary school. He used to get us doing things such as singing Spandau Ballet in drag in the choir, and I remember loving it.

I feel that for years of teaching in the country and reading criticism in books, I feel like the things most needed in our culture are the understanding of the meanings of our music. We haven't done that good of job teaching our kids what our music means or how we developed our taste in music that reminds us and teaches us who we are.

I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.