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I consider myself a composer.

I knew nothing of the real life of a musician, but I seemed to see myself standing in front of great crowds of people, playing my accordion.

I'm a composer, man.

I've always been a composer dependent on texts.

I'd forget the piece just before I went out to do the concerto, the panic was too great. This was not anything that gave me pleasure. This was fulfilling somebody else's dream.

I'm probably the only kid in history whose parents made him stop taking music lessons. They made me stop studying the accordion.

I had a musician friend once tell me that it's not in the orchestra that you get the true test of the musicians but in the little trios and quintets where you really get to see if they've got the stuff. And the composer.

Growing up in Louisiana, my grandmother gave me an accordion because of our Cajun heritage. What ended up happening was I started learning about more instruments, so I just kind of went that route. Music's really all I've ever done.