'Setting aside any discussion about aesthetics, there’s one very simple reason why I make music: So I don’t have to grow up.'
About the teacher
'When I was 11 years old, even though I was a year younger than the minimum age allowed, I sneaked into a Sci-Fi movie that had just come out, extremely excited about what the princess, the cowboy, and the golden robot would experience on the big screen. The famous Fox Fanfare had just ended when a fully orchestrated B-flat major chord - just like a musical jump scare - blasted through the theater, pressing me into my seat, followed by music unlike anything I’d ever heard in connection with space. I had been singing from an early age and would set the stories I had read to music in my head, but here - through this experience - I not only became a film buff, but I also began to seriously consider learning to play the piano and uncovering the secret behind that powerful B-flat major chord.
A second experience - hearing Bach’s St. Matthew Passion for the very first time, a CD I managed to snag from the bargain bin at a music store without knowing what to expect for so little money - left me not only overwhelmed and deeply impressed, but also somewhat at a loss, with the all-important question: Can something like this be learned?
Have I learned it by now?
Well, at that moment back then I at least had a notion that this work belongs to perhaps humanity’s greatest musical legacy; it only became clear to me much later, when my studies of harmony and counterpoint revealed more about the theoretical connections.
But completely regardless of whether I’ll ever unravel the mystery behind this and many other great musical works, there’s one decision—maybe the boldest of my life—that I’ve never once regretted:
Throwing myself into the fascinating and fulfilling adventure of telling stories through music!
