Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff.

If somebody had told me when I was starting composition in Helsinki in the '70s that I would end up in L.A. and to describe that journey, those 17 years with the philharmonic and building the hall and this and that, I would have said, "This is a fairy tale of the first order."

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.

This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.

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

In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been.