Ludovico Einaudi

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.

I feel a vocabulary in my music that is coming from popular music. Popular music is like the mother of all languages.

I am very happy to be able to cross borders to go to China, to Mexico, to America, everywhere, and there is an instant understanding of what I do. This is incredibly beautiful because you've suddenly communicated with everyone without speaking the same language. The language of music is able to go anywhere.

I always get excited by the idea of adventure, of doing something different.

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.

The great art of the past became great because it started to go out of the perimeters that defined art and defined new territories.

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.

I like to keep changing because discovery is always interesting.

You can put the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the same category, but the types of music, the colors each band evokes, are completely different. It's the same with Mozart and Beethoven - they express two very different aspects of music.

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 don't like the idea of 'classical crossover,' even if sometimes I see this category given to what I'm doing.

I love The Edge's guitar style; it is unique. There is an ancient world resonating in his guitar sound.