Q Why do you do what you do?
A I do what I do - make music or assist others in making it - because it is the only thing I am good at. Being visually impaired with the genetic eye condition retinitis pigmentosa, I can't trust my eyes as much as I can trust my ears.
Making music fills me with an energy and an enthusiasm for life that is contagious. Music is a language that has always spoken very clearly to me - it's not translatable, but it provokes and stimulates the imagination in a way that is as powerful as any drug.
That's how I describe it to others at any rate. Some sort of music is always present in my mind, and I guess I have all the symptoms of an addict.
Q What is your earliest memory?
A Waking up on Sunday mornings as a young boy with my father blasting music out from his stereo and filling the house - either classical music such as Sibelius tone poems and symphonies, or jazz, especially Sydney Bechet, Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw.
It was those jazz players who stimulated my desire to learn clarinet although, paradoxically, I have never been a jazz player.
Q What did you want to be when you were growing up?
A From 1964 to 1966, my family lived in England and the TV show The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was all the rage. Napoleon Solo (played by Robert Vaughan) was the suave and cool secret agent and, for all that time in the UK, I wanted to be an agent like him.
I know now that I would be much more like the character Johnny English than Napoleon Solo, but my friends and I spent hours playing at secret agent games in the park behind our suburban London house.
Q What is your most embarrassing moment on stage?
A Most of my most embarrassing moments happen in rehearsal (batons flying, music stands toppling). But when I was conducting the City Choir in the early 1990s, I did a Messiah performance in Balclutha where we had no tenor soloist, and I had to sing the tenor numbers myself. Anyone who has heard my singing voice will tell you that that was embarrassing!
Q Property aside, what's the most extravagant thing you've bought? Was it a clarinet?
A When I arrived in London in 1981, I went to Graham's Hi-fi in Pentonville Rd with the intention of buying a cheap cassette tape player.
Instead, I left with a Creek amplifier, Royd Conniston speakers and a superb Rega Planar 3 turntable - the latter a beautiful piece of engineering that makes even the oldest records musical and almost crackle-free.
Thirty-five years later, they all still work perfectly and there isn't a week that goes by that I don't play something on this quality British equipment.
Q Who would play you in the film of your life?
A It has been cheekily suggested Patrick Stewart - I admit that there is a passing resemblance due to our hairstyle - but I suspect the blundering Rowan Atkinson, aka Mr Bean, would best capture my natural clumsiness and lack of grace! We both use gesture to communicate, so we have that in common.
Q What is your guiltiest pleasure?
A My friends all know that I am a malt whisky buff, especially the rich peaty ones from Islay. My daughter perceptively told me years ago, ''that smells of medicine and s... Dad''.
But if I am at home alone, then my guilty pleasure would be watching UK crime drama on television with a bowl of hokey pokey ice cream, followed by a dram later, of course!
Q What would be your dream job?
A As I had to give up driving around 15 years ago, a dream job would be being a long-haul truck driver, or a courier. Just occasionally I miss driving, especially on roads like the Haast Pass over to the West Coast.
There is something about the freedom of travelling on the open road and seeing the scenery change around you. It can sure beat being stuck in the office!
Q Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?
A I am not really one for dinner parties. My lack of peripheral sight means that such events are nightmares of knocked-over wine glasses and not noticing things happening either side of me.
But sitting down with some interesting fellow musicians always leads to a good night. I would invite fellow New Zealand conductor and composer Kenneth Young because he does similar activities to me - including working with brass bands.
The violinist Helene Pohl from the New Zealand String Quartet is a deep thinker on musical matters and a lovely person - she would make good company at such a dinner.
Ex-Otago student Holly Mathieson is also someone with many interests and an international perspective - and a fine conductor. She would have to be there.
Finally, although now deceased, the pianist Glenn Gould was an extraordinary genius and the one person I would have most liked to meet.
Q What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
A In my case, science is making great advances in stem-cell treatment of the retina, and eye transplants are nearer to becoming a reality.
However, there are thousands of people whose eyes are worse than mine, and I suspect that these treatments won't become affordable and universally widespread in my lifetime. Regaining some lost peripheral sight would certainly improve the accident rate.
Q What keeps you awake at night?
A Anxiety, uncertainty and stress all keep me awake at times. Recently, I have gone through an unsettling and anxious time at work, and this certainly affected my sleep patterns.
In more general terms, music can keep me awake at night - usually the music I happen to be rehearsing. When I did intensive rehearsals of brass band test pieces in the past, I would find the passages I had rehearsed would revisit me at unwanted times in the middle of the night.
Q What song would you like played at your funeral?
A My initial thought was Eric Carmen's All By Myself, or Alone Again, Naturally. But seriously, I would like the haunting song Goodbye composed in 1935 by Eric Jenkins.
It became well known as the closing theme song of the Benny Goodman orchestra and it is Goodman's 1935 recording that I love. Music critic Alec Wilder described Goodbye as ''as sad a song I know'' and Leonard Feather called it among the top 10 songs ''it would be hardest to tire of hearing''.
