What I'd do if I had the money

Sholto Kynoch, pianist

I would set about creating better visual and aural space in the world. I'd begin by burying all roads, power cables. As a musician, this would be the first step to making the world a quieter place. All cars would be redesigned to run almost silently (although they'd be underground anyway), as would all other forms of transport. I'd then buy and demolish all ugly buildings: not modern buildings, necessarily, just ones that show no inspiration or care. Shops would be banned from playing music that spilled on to the street. We could all choose how much we wanted to hear, and when we would hear it.

When I go to concerts, especially to listen to chamber music or song (my own fields), I find it sometimes takes most of the first half, for my ears to adjust to something that, in terms of decibels, is actually quite small. Being the primary sponsor of all classical music, I would (even in the relative quiet of my redesigned world) insist on at least two minutes of silence at the start of all concerts so that people's ears would be optimally sensitive to the music washing over them.

I don't want the pace of life to slow down, or to re-create the world of 100 years ago. I'd just like everyone to be better able to appreciate mankind's greatest achievement of all, to be more easily transported (literally and aurally) into the highly personal "other world" that is music.

·Sholto Kynoch is artistic director of the Oxford Lieder Festival (www.oxfordlieder.co.uk). He makes his debut at the Wigmore Hall, London W1, on April 26. Box office: 020-7935 2141.

· Interview by Lisa Allardice.