It is to do what you really want to do without being afraid that you will make a mistake, it is to be able to make mistakes without fear, it is to say you allow yourself to make sounds, to make music without the guaruantee that it will sound correct. This can be applicable whether you do this for the very first time or have been doing this over years. It will always stay the same. You never have that gauruantee. But what you have is a certain trust. You trust that something will happen which can not be written down, but will be able to communicate. It is a trust. it takes a lot of levels to be spontaneous, it is not just "go with the flow" and do whatever you want. You focus and you listen to what you play.

You are actually busy to think about what you are doing while you are doing it. But that "thinking" side, that analytical side is never so strong that it will make you fear the freedom. It is never so strong that it will make you anxious. You think, you analyse, you plan to a certain extent, you anticipate without losing the flow, without losing your boldness. Because it asks a certain boldness. You want to say something and you are going to say that something. You want to hear something and you are going to hear that something. You play the piano and you think, wow, I wish it sounds just like this and than you MAKE it sound like that.

Well, there was a stage in my life when I focused even less! I was interested in almost anything - all the art forms, the academic disciplines, all the cultures, forms of expression. I came to value integration as much as specialization. I was fascinated- and still am - by the way the whole of things informs the details, in other words, there is an Art which is greater than the various art forms of the day. There is a Skill that underlies all the different skills we practise. So I developed a way of focusing as much on the whole as on the parts. If the whole is sound and alive, it infuses all your actions, and cultivates new skills from below, like roots giving water to the branches of a tree. On stage today, I have a community of skills at hand: they all complement each other (like for instance my cello playing would be anhanced by my movement skills) and the added dimension to the audience is that you present them with the reverberation of the whole - the magic, if you like - as well as the shine of the details. Technique infused by spirit.

All that I can say at this stage is that the audiences that listen to me, most of the time, I was in Europe and the USA, react extremely optimistic. The audiences over there get SO excited, and it is great, it's like a wind that blows through them and it gives me the feeling that I am on my way somewhere. I am busy with something that is truly worthwhile.

I tell myself that if I receive this kind of recognition on a small scale, why not also on a bigger scale in years to come? But inside my thoughts there are always questions hanging. And one works primarily with the present and you are not fixated on the future.

Greatly. Children teach you something. I have a certain freedom with children, almost like an opportunity to experiment. I think they liberate you, you go completely crazy and they are actually mad about it.

I speak about spontaneous creativity, and I try to convey that, you know, there are treasures inside of. Wealth and riches do not only exist outside of yourself. I usually take the example of music: we generally think of music as of written notes that come to you from the outside; but there is as much music withIN each of us, in your soul, your being, to which you must give attention and expression.

It is part of our lives in any event. And in the music world it has never truly died. There is jazz, which is big today. There is a lot of traditional music which is strongly infiltrated by spontaneity which today is popularized as world music. And then you get the momemts of hardcore spontaneity in rock and jazz music when the drum or sax player for instance is given the opportunity to "let go." It is usually these moments that get the crowds going. Thus, spontaneity is there all the time. It is more about the fact that it is TREATED rather badly. There is a great parallel between this and what we had a 100 years ago with women's rights - they were not removed from society, but they had quite a raw deal. Spontaneity to me comes from a more "feminine" place - less rational, less regulated. Like that other great feminine entity - our Earth - we treat her in a pretty degrading way.

Well, at first I doubted whether I fit in at all with my spontaneous approach, let alone do something about the state of the world. But I have never been without ambition. So it drives me to explore how I can contribute. And deeply, I believe in its value, that it is a necessary thing today. All I can really do about it, is to keep on playing!