1. It’s Sunday morning, what are you having for breakfast? Cheese (Jarlsberg, Emmentaler), perhaps some charcuterie and toast, Wildfire’s great granola with berries, occasional waffles, and home-made jams.
2. If you didn’t do what you did for a living, what would you be? My own worst, much-feared music critic.
3. What’s playing in your music player right now? Verdi’s Otello, Schnittke symphonies.
4. What’s your biggest pet peeve? Humour-killing ‘political correctness.’
5. What’s the best thing about living in Victoria? Victoria.
6. Where were you born? Victoria.
7. Which person, alive or dead, would you have dinner with? Richard Wagner.
8. What’s your favourite vacation destination? Bate’s Beach near Courtenay and Sicily.
9. If you could have one super power, what would it be? Perfect, unfailing memory.
10. What’s the one thing you haven’t done that you’d love to do? Conduct Die Meistersinger (and Der Rosenkavalier).
11. If you could see one concert, what would it be? Not interested — rather do it myself.
12. What is your favourite TV show? Fareed Zakarian’s GPS
13. What’s your dream car? I drive it - BMW Z3 — (newer models vastly less appealing).
14. What is your favourite place to dine? Rei dos Leitoes (Portuguese for ‘King of the Roasters’) -— known informally as Rui’s — in London, Ontario.
15. What are your words to live by? Bring as much love and compassion as possible to every human contact and relationship, but don’t let the bastards grind you down.