As a composer I have been described variously as a modernist, a practitioner of the new complexity, and a maximalist, all designations I repudiate. My own view is that I am a Science Fiction Composer: many of my works draw on either science proper or science fiction for their imagery and structure. I have recently come to feel that the overheated traditional/modernist debate is obsolete, and in recent works—my Piano Sonata, in particular—I have sought to marry the two stances in one single overarching structure with a view to demonstrating a potential rapprochement. The frequently-encountered tactic of juxtaposing local zones of tonal or non-tonal music seems to me an unimaginative solution; I prefer nowadays to generate material that sidesteps either allegiance and suggests a way forward.