Michael Nyman

“I want my music to be accessible to as many people as possible.”

“My music is very physical. It's something you can feel in your body.”

“I'm an obsessive collector of sounds, and I'm always looking for new things to incorporate into my music.”

“The great thing about music is that it's timeless. I think I will be able to profit from it in the future.”

“I don't think of myself as an English composer. I think of myself as a composer who happens to be English.”

“I'm interested in the way that music can express the unspoken. That is, it can tell you a story that you can't put into words.”

“I'm not interested in being a 'serious' composer in the Beethoven tradition.”

“The whole point of collaboration is that you give and take from each other, and that's how you create things that are totally new.”

“I think the film score is a very strange art form. It's not music in the pure sense. It's a supportive art form.”

“For me, the process of writing is a process of discovery.”

“I've always been drawn to the spoken word. It's the most direct and simple way of communication.”