I feel it is important to keep writing and creating more music at a time when we truly need it. Music is healing and significant not only as an art but as a means of creating a transformation.

I loved the music that my parents listened to rather than what was on the radio at the time. I was very enamored with show music and I listened to a lot of the music that I now perform.

There's definitely a physical feeling performing with an orchestra because our bodies are made up of vibrations and all music that is acoustically-based resonates with the vibrations of the body. So to be onstage with all those instruments vibrating - the emotional effect is thrilling. It's like a high; a wonderful legal high.

"The MGM story is just one example of music that's vanishing all the time. We're talking about a unique piece of our cultural history, and for me it's like a death in the family every time we learn that something else has disappeared." (About MGM's 1970 clean-out of priceless film scores, musical manuscripts, and recordings to cut storage costs)

"I was secretive about what I did, what I listened to. It was clear that my friends - what friends I had - would laugh at me. The fact is, I didn't have many friends." (about his early love of music)

(About how Michael annoyed his sister because he could duplicate whatever she practiced on the keyboard) "At one point she was practicing "Malaguena" over and over again. As soon as she finished, I could sit down and play the piece, because I had heard it enough times. It used to make her nuts."

My life is music. It has always been music, and it will always be music.