I went to work one morning, and outside my door was Cindy Crawford in a black bra, and I thought that very clearly the building is making progress in integrating itself into various layers of our culture.

The players never think they project enough. In a hall that seats 3,300 people, it's a very scary thing to play so quietly that you can barely hear yourself.

Every orchestra I know, every opera house I know, is desperately looking around trying to find new talent, new composing talent, supporting young composers, supporting new ideas, supporting new ways of getting the message across.

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.

The sort of commercial parameters of classical music changed after the [World War II] , and the whole industry became more backward-looking.

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

There is more openness in LA to possibilities than on the East Coast of America. There is a pioneering spirit there that stems from the reason people went out there in the first place-to find something new.