You know, in some ways conducting is counter-intuitive. It's like winter driving in Finland - if you skid, the natural reaction is to fight with the wheel and jam on the brakes, which is the quickest way to get killed. What you have to do is let go, and the car will right itself. It's the same when an orchestra loses its ensemble. You have to resist the temptation to semaphore, and let the orchestra find its own way back to the pulse.

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

The act of conducting in itself, of waving my arms in the air and being in charge, I didn't miss. I missed the sensual pleasure of being in contact with music.

If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

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.

Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall.