It is not unusual, therefore, to recall in my mind's ear and eye the repetitive strains of the Brahms Waltz, Op. 39, No. 1 in B Major, played by a French officer at a small piano. Although I've heard that sunny piece all my life, for me it has always held an undercurrent of sorrow in its cheerfulness, and it has run like a leitmotif through my consciousness. I believe the greatest satisfaction that one can have in making music is the ability to be immersed in a process so completely that it takes you over. You lose the consciousness of self and methodology and become the transcendent medium through which something truly great is transmitted. It is a union through which you, the composer, and the piece are in complete understanding.
Nothing can match it.
As for teaching, which is the great love of my life, I derive tremendous satisfaction from helping a student reach and exceed his limits and expectations to bring out his inner potential. I sometimes feel like a sculptor, chiseling away at a block of stone bit by bit to expose the perfection existing within. I have to be both diagnostician and problem solver, and it becomes an exciting threshold for both of us. Ultimately, I'm a believer in being one's own most influential person, by taking what you hear, see, and perceive, and integrating it. With the greatest accuracy, and the deepest respect and fidelity to the score.