Robert Lau talks to us about life as a composer.
How did you get involved with music, and what drew you to composing?
I began violin lessons at the age of seven. Interest in other instruments soon followed, so that by my high school years I played violin in the orchestra, oboe and flute in the band, piano in the jazz band, sang in the choir and played the organ in church. Many of my colleagues (and people of the choral and organ world) don't know that I was a string player all my life -- violin in under- graduate school and viola in graduate school. I also taught both instruments privately and played viola professionally in a string quartet.