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

The biggest difference between U.S and most European big cities is that in a place like London, for instance, there are five orchestras, and there's a bloody competition between these five orchestras.

I always felt that one day I would have to make the change in my own life, bite the bullet and see what it is to be a composer who conducts rather than the other way around.

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 don't believe in an annual dose of film music for the sake of it being film music. If we program film music, it will be because there is a real artistic reason for doing so.

I actually don't like this term, "classic." It's wrong, but we don't have a better word at the moment.

Our industry [classic music] has kind of retarded into this kind of endless cover-producing thing, and it's a pity.