Gavin Bryars

What was once underground is now coming to the surface.

One thing I'm doing on the new Titanic recording is actually bringing in different acoustic spaces.

I remember once, when I started writing for the alto saxophone, a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola, but louder.

People like Arvo Part would not have been taken seriously 20 years ago.

Like an apparently strict musical form it breaks the five minute whole into its structural parts - a descriptive preamble, the action of taking the cards, the development of the cards' manipulation and the revelation of what has been achieved.

The project which we developed, however, was for a sound piece and I was initially curious that a sculptor should be interested in working with a musician, especially on a project for radio.

I currently spend a lot of time thinking about orchestration and every detail of a piece.

There's another way of making music, by touching the lives and feelings of ordinary people.

Somehow in the 20th Century an idea has developed that music is an activity or skill which is not comprehensible to the man in the street. This is an arrogant assertion and not necessarily a true one.

As I had collaborated with visual artists before whether on installations, on performance pieces, in the context of theatre works and as I had taught for a time in art colleges the idea of writing music in response to painting was not alien.

I know that John Adams has had a very hard time directing French ensembles.

Still, American composers working in France have had a pretty hard time.