Growing up as a gay boy in West Texas, I definitely felt like a bit of an outcast sometimes - that there was a world that I would never be a part of.

If you've never heard a piece of Mozart, then Mozart could sound scary or confusing, so it's all about learning.

When you step off a plane into a place like Haiti, you're just surrounded by overwhelming stimulus: the people selling you things, asking you to engage.

I found that the same things I loved about performing were the things I liked about directing and creating a piece - striking a chord that was in tune with the world and was reflecting back what I saw, just from a different angle.