Zeit Magazin – January 2019

‘A great musical dream would be an encounter with Mozart’

Because I travel a lot for work, I have learned to sleep everywhere. I just have to close my eyes, and you know, I’m dusking away, whether it’s on trains, planes, or buses. Whether I’m dreaming or not, I’m always glad if I get my seven hours sleep because I need that.

For a long time a certain dream followed me on tours: I enter a stage alone, the hall is jam-packed, I begin to play, and very slowly the audience leave the room, one after the other. This goes on until I end up alone in the concert hall. I keep playing and I don’t find it so bad to be alone with my music.I even enjoy it. I could certainly feel this situation as a nightmare, but I don’t see it like that.

The basic idea of dreaming is that you move in wondrous parallel worlds. I can’t find anything unpleasant about that. Dreams help me recalibrate my thoughts.

Already as a child I dreamed extensively. A strange dream has accompanied me for a long time. It was about one community of women living in a secret world. The entrance to this world was hidden in our bathroom. I my dreams, I visited these women often and with enthusiasm. There were a lot of women, young and old, and we just hung out like that. I was the only boy in her world and they were very friendly to me. I felt so good in their company, that I was always a was a little sad when I woke up from those dreams.

It may sound hackneyed, but I really feel my job as a dream. Because I can make all my fantasies come true. I have played rock music but also written musicals and movie soundtracks, even a Chinese opera. There are so many other formats that I still would like to try.

Soon, I want to try classical music. It opens new worlds for me: sonatas, oratorios and symphonies particularly tempt me. Of course, I don’t know whether I really have a symphony in me or can actually compose in this way. However, I don’t fear failure. I have probably failed a few times terrible, which wasn’t so pleasant. My musical, for example, was a beating defeat. But every defeat only adds to my curiosity.

A big musical dream would be an encounter with Mozart. He really lived music. It would be enough for me just to spend a little time in the presence of such a genius. Maybe I’ll meet him in my dreams.