I started conducting lessons and I realized that this is actually something I like doing.

There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.

I think if you would like to describe composing as an act with one word, "slow" would be the word.

Los Angeles is just a more open place. The way L.A. functions is that people give you a forum. They say, Show us what you can do.

Lots of really interesting people move to U.S and decide to work here, because of this whole attitude and openness. I'm absolutely convinced that this is just the beginning. In a couple decades we will see an even more dramatic change.

Sometimes you spend nine months, 10 months, a year writing a piece that you will hear two years later or something like that, and you never see anybody. It's a very different sort of metabolic.

I realized that the European dogma is not necessarily the only way to look at things.