Composer Thea Musgrave says she still writes every day at the age of 90.
Her compositions have recently been performed at the Edinburgh International Festival and the BBC Proms.
The Scottish conductor tells Desert Island Discs she composes every morning.
“It’s like staying in shape and exercise. You go to the gym – I don’t do that – to stay in shape. At this point in my life, I only do about two or three hours every day but they’re very focused,” she tells host Lauren Laverne.
She advises people to listen to their dreams after she was inspired, in one of her works, by a dream she had about a “defiant” member of an orchestra.
“It shows that occasionally, if you have a dream, it’s a good thing to think about it,” she tells the Radio 4 show.
She says that suffering hearing loss has not had an impact on her compositions, adding: “My imagination can go to all sorts of places my ears won’t follow.”
Desert Island Discs airs on Radio 4 on Sunday at 11.15am.
