1. How and when did you get interested in composing?

Between the ages of seven and fourteen a family friend used to visit just to play our piano (he didn't have one). I was fascinated, particularly by his improvisations of ‘horror film’ music. I quickly figured I could imitate that and soon was improvising for hours; while mostly this was indulged by my family, there were times I had to dragged away from the instrument! Then later as soon as I had got the hang of writing music down I was writing things. I started a string quartet at fifteen, but had no clue about technique. I soon realised it was complete junk.

2. Is composing your 'day job' or do you do something else as well?

I would say it is one of my day jobs. I also do some teaching, some arts administration and some music journalism.

3. Where do you mostly get your ideas?

Wherever my head happens to be at the time that I am composing; I mean they occur whenever and wherever I have time to think about making new work.

4. What are you working on at the moment?

A second movement to a violin and piano piece called Ghost machine. The piece exists for now as just one movement, which is all I intended to write at first. I am also thinking ahead about two commissions: one for alto flute and guitar (John Feeley and Bill Dowdall), and another for a Danish quartet called Nordlys.

5. Describe your typical working day.

Some time around 9.30 or 10.00am I will compose for one- to two-and-a-half hours, then I will get back to it for another one to two hours after 8.00pm. This because my three-year-old son goes to pre-school and I split all the home child-minding 50-50 with my wife (and enjoy all of it). That work time is itself divided between composing, writing and administration for the Association of Irish Composers. I have developed a taste for juggling many tasks and find that ideas that have been ‘resting’ at the back of my mind return refined and improved.

6. What is it like hearing a new piece played for the first time?

Absolutely nerve-wracking! You don't know if it's going to be a good piece, or a good performance -- two entirely different worries at once.

7. What has been the highlight of your career so far?

Hearing two of my orchestral pieces performed in 2003's Horizons series by the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra under William Eddins. One of the pieces was fourteen years old and I had never heard it -- I didn't really know if it would be good enough. I was relieved to find that I, at least, thought it was excellent!

8. What has been the lowlight of your career so far?

Travelling all the way to Romania to hear a piece played poorly for an afternoon audience of about three men and a dog, all the while worrying about my wife's advanced state of pregnancy (and would I get back through Bucharest unmugged). I really enjoyed the rest of that trip though, and got to visit Xenakis's old house, which makes the trip a high point too!

9. What is your greatest ambition?

To compose my first and last opera at ninety-two, like Elliott Carter. To hell with the critics after that!

10. Which musician in history do you most admire and why?

Iannis Xenakis, for writing stunning music, overcoming political exile -- including death sentences from three wartime and post-war regimes in Greece -- and for rising to the top of his profession in France, of all places, despite partial deafness (from a gunshot head-wound sustained in anti-fascist demonstrations). He also struggled against the usual biases against ‘starting too late’ and being mostly self-taught. Add his mathematical, engineering and architectural track record, his pioneering work in algorithmic composition…and 132 masterpieces.

11. Which present-day musician do you most admire and why?

Gyorgy Ligeti, again for going against the tide and producing a wonderful body of highly original work -- but there are so many others. In other genres I would mention Dave Brubeck (and his sons), Tom Waits and Burt Bacharach.

12. Which period of history would you most like to have lived in and why?

1920s Paris. As described by Hemingway and also Louise Varèse, there was a lot of communication between so many amazing artists of all kinds: Picasso, Varèse, Scott Fitzgerald, Joyce, Cocteau, Diagilev, the surrealists and so on. A huge list (though I'm sure some of them would be unendurable megalomaniacs).

13. What is the best thing about being a composer?

It's definitely not the money! Hearing great music by your contemporaries and thinking: ‘Hmmm, I'm going to get there before I die!’

14. What is the worst thing about being a composer?

Hearing great music by your contemporaries and thinking: ‘Hmmm, I'm never going to get there before I die!’

15. If you weren't a composer, what other career might you have chosen?

Architect.

16. What is your concept of heaven?

Humanity's positive achievements and inventions minus all the negative ones.

17. What is your concept of hell?

The reverse. And being trapped in a lift listening to Imagine on a loop.

18. What is your favourite food?

Duck confit in a French restaurant, in France, with a good bottle of red. Followed by crème brulée and dessert wine.

19. If someone gave you three months off with unlimited travel and living expenses, what would you do?

I love travel. I'd go right around the world living in comfort, stopping in New York, Vancouver, Japan, China, some quiet island in the Pacific, then maybe up to Vladivostok to catch the Trans-Siberian train to Moscow, then hop home via Austria (to visit the brother).

20. If you could have one thing in the world that would really help you as a composer, what would it be?

More time!