Playing for dance is important to me. What I value about it most is that seeing movement helps me create music, and it is necessary for me to create music to live life with a sense of satisfaction and meaning. In turn, the music I play seems to be inspiring for those who use it for movement, and this is gratifying as well, to know that my music has found a useful place in the world.
- Playing for technique class provides the musician with a unique opportunity to play for people who are neither sitting passively in (one hopes) rapt concentration, as in the concert hall, nor are they chatting and eating as they are in clubs. They are instead engrossed in an organized and highly demanding activity that has great meaning to them. To be able to help in such an enterprise is something to be valued.
- Western 20th century art holds self expression to be a given in the act of creation. I personally feel it is somewhat over rated. Plenty of fabulous art has been created throughout history and around the world by people who have no inkling of "self expression". I prefer instead to think of the creative process as an exploration into "what will work?". This means that I tend to alter works that I may have performed previously to fit what seem to be the needs of that particular space at that particular time.
- My interest is in generating certain responses in listeners. If I got the wrong response it's the wrong piece. The meaning and nature of the piece exist in the world as a set of responses, not as some absolute artistic entity in my own mind.
- I believe that art and artists exist to fulfill an evolutionary design. Their consistent presence throughout history in culture after culture cannot be explained by politics or by economics. People need a special place and time to escape temporarily from the circle of their own lives, which are often filled with pain and drudgery. Art and entertainment which do not have the power to transport the audience have no business being on the stage.
- As a consumer I value both art and entertainment. For me what distinguishes the one from the other is art gives me insights I can bring back into my life, helping me to lead it in a richer and clearer way. Personally I hope both to entertain people, and to help them get more out of their lives in some mysterious way.
