It's awesome to see something like 'Inception' which is just mind-blowing and amazing and it actually resonates with the audiences. I feel like that's rare.

In fact it is amazing how much European films - Italian French German and English - have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years.

It's amazing how fast generations lose sight of other generations. One of the first things the young composers who come to work with me say is that they want to write music people will like instead of gaining their credentials by being rejected by the audience.

My public image is so low-key but I get to travel the world and still have an audience and it's really amazing. I don't take that for granted.

Theatre when it is at its best takes a lot of beating - the live experience and the shared collective experience of live storytelling is really special when it is good. Particularly here in New York because the audiences are amazing very vocal and very engaged and that makes theatre very exciting.

There are actually quite high profile British TV star cameos in it that you probably wouldn't even notice that the British wouldn't even notice let alone the American audience.

You have to respect your audience. Without them you're essentially standing alone singing to yourself.

Costumes and scenery alone will not attract audiences.

It seems to me there is a change in what audiences want to see. I can only hope that's correct because there's an awful lot of people of my age around now and we outnumber the others.

I was always concerned with writing to my age at a particular moment. That was the way I would keep faith with the audience that supported me as I went along.