I feel today, with all the possibilities we have in our hands, all the new technology at our disposal, everything is becoming obvious. Nothing is surprising. You can see beautiful things on Instagram, but there is something that doesn't touch you deeply. Everything is normal, while there's nothing that grabs you and turns you upside down.
— Ludovico Einaudi
I never say no or yes. I just listen to how I feel and follow my emotions.
Often, I could not find the range of emotions in classical music which I found in the The Rolling Stones and Hendrix. Listening to Bach, I found a deep spirituality and felt elevated above the human level. Yet the feeling and emotions attached to popular music speak to us far more personally, and I couldn't leave that behind.
This is the beauty of popular music, that it is based on simple and memorable tunes.
It is very important to have connection with your soul and open your heart to people.
People always talk about the lyrics of Leonard Cohen, but I like his melodies. They are very defined and original.
In rock music, you have a big success before you turn 30, then there is sort of a decay. Then there is the reunion, and everyone is waiting to hear what you were doing when you were 20, and nobody cares what you are doing at 50 or 60. But the more I continue, the more I produce, the more I play every year in bigger places.
The spirituality of the music is something that I always search for in what I do, because I think that music has to have everything inside: a strong architecture, a support, the emotion.
It is important that we understand the importance of the Arctic, stop the process of destruction, and protect it.
As a composer, it is a great thrill for me to have an album in the top 15 of the pop charts.
I think it's normal that for a part of your life you have a lot of questions, and you're interested in all possible theories.
Being invited to score for 'Black Swan' was a real honour. To have my work form part of such an amazing film is something I am very proud of.
After years of doing composition, the risk is always that you might start to repeat and be cliche. Every time, I try find a way to be reborn again as an artist. Its not easy to reinvent yourself every time, as it takes a lot of creative energy, but I am happy to do it.
Sometimes you cannot produce a specific sound you want with, say, a guitar or piano, and you simply need to use electronic elements.
Doing the Five Tibetan Rites exercises every day - it makes me feel at home wherever I am.
I feel a vocabulary in my music that is coming from popular music. Popular music is like the mother of all languages.
In a soundtrack, you are in a way always relating with... a combination of different languages. It has to have the same path and same rhythm. Sometimes it's a polyphony of languages that have to work together in some way. With musical projects alone, you can be more free.
I always get excited by the idea of adventure, of doing something different.
There should be no boundaries in your relationship with sound. Often it's not about the music itself but the context in which you hear the music. For instance, listening to a piece of classical music in a film you love often changes your perception of it entirely.
When I hear people who love my music and are trying to copy it, it sounds strange to me because it sounds so simple, made by other people. It took me a lot of years to find the balance, to find a way to be on the edge of being accessible but at the same time having the echo of a deep, more complex world.
You don't have to compose a masterpiece every time, but I think the challenge of art is always searching for something different, searching for a new sensitivity, a new perspective, a new vision.
In Mali, you hear music everywhere. What is fantastic in Mali is the music tradition is handed down from father to son orally. It is not written. You learn from your father and add something, because you are living now and telling a story to others. This results in many different interpretations of the same song.
'Uptown Funk' has all the ingredients of the funk that I love.
The great art of the past became great because it started to go out of the perimeters that defined art and defined new territories.
I love The Edge's guitar style; it is unique. There is an ancient world resonating in his guitar sound.
I'm a living composer, so I think I just write and compose the music of my time. I'm not saying that I am better than anyone in the past, but I am saying that I may have evolved some emotions that have connected with the people that are living on the planet today with me.
I spent one year being very poor at home with my piano, and nobody was calling me, but I had space to think about things on my own and find out exactly what I wanted to do.
I discovered that I didn't want to be strict like a German composer.
It's very interesting to see how the music is used, as sometimes you have composed something with a very different intention, and then suddenly you see it connected to something different. For example, it was incredibly strong and beautiful the first time I saw 'This Is England' by Shane Meadows.
Every time I start a new work, I try to be different and to start with a new perspective, so I search for a new idea, something which gives me a new way to access my creativity.
A great melodic line is like a person's soul, and coming up with an original melody, it can be like you are illustrating the soul.
The Beatles, 'Revolver.' It's pop. It's classic. It's experimental. It's revolutionary.
My mother played piano at home; she came from a musical family. Her father, who I never met, was a conductor and composer.
With every musical project, I ended up feeling more enriched by the experience.
In '68 I was 13 years old, so I was a child, but I felt a lot of excitement in listening to things, looking at the pop art coming over from America. My father was an art collector, and he was coming home with these strange pieces of art that weren't exposed in museums. At the time, it was quite revolutionary, very adventurous.
Music is an intrinsic part of life; therefore, it is important to transport different forms of artistic expression, science, and mathematics into compositions.
I have always loved composers who have been connected with folk traditions of popular music.
I like music that expresses what I think.
The creative process of composing music has always fascinated me.
You can create something strong in art with a few notes. It is like how Aboriginal drawings have a simplicity that is incredibly rich.
It is a boring life if you stick to all the rules.
The Arctic Ocean is completely unprotected, so technically, people can do with it whatever they like.
I am compared to other classical musicians, but most of them perform songs from other people, and most of those composers belong to another era.
Arriving at a simple piece of music is a very difficult balance because, in being simple, you could easily be banal, so maybe it's more difficult to write a simple piece of music than a 12-tone piece where no one understands exactly what it is about.
The London Olympic Opening Ceremony was excellent. The mixture of old and new, of classic and contemporary was a beautiful reflection of Great Britain. Danny Boyle is a genius.
I was a teenager, and I started to go to high school, and it was a disaster!
I love to explore melody.
I love to go to the bar close by for a good espresso and have a chat with the bartender.
I grew up partially with classical music but listened to a lot of rock when I was young - I like acoustic, and folk from Mali and Armenia and Turkey.
I express myself using my classical skills to write more complex forms of popular music.
