My father's parents were Irish. Only a year before my father died, he and I went back to Ireland for a week to look at the old homestead.
“I believe that historians and analysts of historical events need the authority of facts supplied by living witnesses to the events, which they make their subject.”
“So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.”