“When I lost a tennis match that made me upset or hurt emotionally I would find myself going to the piano and playing for hours. It was my place of refuge and solace.”

I have a huge record and cd collection of all kinds of great classical, jazz and all music but I find the internet very accessible and quick.

When you play competitive tennis you are competing against someone else and you have to win. Playing music I didn’t have to win I had to become better within myself.

The thing I learned from playing tennis is that I know what competition is. I can handle rejection.

There is competition. It’s almost like I’m back in tennis competing in a way. There are usually about twenty composers vying for the number one spot for a big or medium film.

Sometimes it’s very hard to turn off my brain especially when I have an eighteen hour day. I try to stop working by 10 or 11pm but you know sometimes there is nothing I can do about it.

I was an accomplished junior tennis player up to around fourteen years old. At fourteen or fifteen I made the decision to venture off to make my life 100% music.

Composers can do things that weren’t allowed in the 17th century. Until we had composers like Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Rachmaninoff to break the rules.

You cannot do what I do for a living without having a thick skin.