WSW: What is your favorite aspect of composing?
MF: My favorite part of composing is not the composing itself. The actual process is difficult and not very much fun at all. I hate spending hours alone at a keyboard or computer. What I love, is going into a rehearsal, working with performers, getting feedback and interacting with musicians. That’s why I often involve myself in performances of my music, either as a performer or conductor.

WSW: Do you enjoy hearing your works performed?
MF: Very much so, but I’m usually quite on edge. I often am involved in performances of my music, and as a performer I have a tendency toward stage fright. I much prefer conducting because my back is toward the audience. However, once the performance is over, I do tend to listen to recordings of my music quite often. I suppose composers can be quite the narcissists!

WSW: What is your next big project?
MF: My next “big project” is something I’ve been working on for nearly two years now: a full-scale opera with my librettist, journalist Daniel J. Kushner. The next phase of the project includes a showcase at Ft. Worth Opera, where Daniel and I will be traveling to in May. We’re working toward a goal of presenting the entire opera in NYC within the next year or so.

WSW: When did you start composing?
MF: From the second I got a piano — I was maybe 8 or 9 — I was writing songs. I never was fond of the traditional piano music I had to practice, and instead tried to emulate the harmonies found in pop music I had grown up listening to.

WSW: What has been your biggest challenge in composing?
MF: Finding the time. I’m actually a very slow composer, and deadlines always get me in trouble. I get consumed by the minutiae and sometimes it takes me a long time to get the bigger picture, or what I like to call the “journey,” in a composition. Often I experience an artistic epiphany regarding something I’m working on the day before it’s due — so there have been many sleepless nights in order to get things just right for a deadline.

WSW: Can you tell us a little about the quintet?
MF: During the initial stages of writing “Sums of Parts,” I caught a performance of Evan Ziporyn’s opera “A House In Bali” at BAM. The opera featured a gamelan orchestra performing with the Bang on a Can All-Stars. I was fascinated with the complex interlocking elements and evolving patterns, as well as the sudden unexpected moments when everything would coalesce. These ideas persisted during the writing of “Sums,” and this interplay of repeating patterns and melodic fragments, along with a pointillistic hammering texture, became the basis of the piece.