My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.

Of course performing talent, that's clear. Maybe this is not so well-known among young people who are interested in music, who are talented in music, but they're trying to figure out how to go about it.

I think we still do have a PR problem in the sense that these institutions portray themselves quite often as a museum without the contemporary wing. For a young cutting-edge person, why would you get into that sort of business, which is very clearly geared towards dead or almost dead people?

In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.

I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.

I always had, deep down, a slight aversion toward the purely cerebral in music.