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

There is such a suspicion in today's world of people who do more than one thing, who aren't specialized.

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

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 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.

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

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?