1. How and when did you get interested in composing?
When I was second year at university. Composing was part of our course and I really enjoyed it, so I kept at it. Up to then I'd been writing songs for a rock/pop band I was in, but that was a very different kettle of fish.
2. Is composing your 'day job' or do you do something else as well?
It's my 'day job', and sometimes my 'night job' as well.
3. Where do you mostly get your ideas?
Life and/or visual art mainly, but sometimes also landscape and poetry.
4. What are you working on at the moment?
A wind quintet for the British group Harlequin. It's provisionally titled In Plato's Cave and will be between 10 and 12 minutes in length.
5. Describe your typical working day.
Can't, as they're all different. If it is a working day it usually involves me scrabbling around for a free hour here and there to compose.
6. What is it like hearing a new piece played for the first time?
Usually satisfying if it's a good performance, sometimes exciting (quite often, actually).
7. What has been the highlight of your career so far?
It's a tie between having a piece, Man-o'-War, at the BBC Proms in 2001 and having my opera, Hamelin, premiered in Germany earlier this year.
8. What has been the lowlight of your career so far?
Can't really think of one.
9. What is your greatest ambition?
To always make a living from writing the music I want to write.
10. Which musician in history do you most admire and why?
I admire a number of performers: Glenn Gould and John Coltrane are two of the greatest for me. I include composers in the 'musician' category, so for me Shostakovich, Bach and Morton Feldman are the dearest.
11. Which present-day musician do you most admire and why?
The composer Helmut Lachenmann for his tenacious vision, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead for his.
12. Which period of history would you most like to have lived in and why?
I can't imagine living in any other time.
13. What is the best thing about being a composer?
I get to do what I want in life and get paid for it.
14. What is the worst thing about being a composer?
Lack of security (but then we're all in that boat to a degree).
15. If you weren't a composer, what other career might you have chosen?
Painter...?
16. What is your concept of heaven?
I'm a little unclear about that.
17. What is your concept of hell?
Dublin in rush hour.
18. What is your favourite food?
Home-made pasta with black olive pesto and sheep's cheese with a good red wine.
19. If someone gave you three months off with unlimited travel and living expenses, what would you do?
Hit some of the good music festivals and concert halls in Europe.
20. If you could have one thing in the world that would really help you as a composer, what would it be?
More time!
