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."

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.

If you think of the history, in the days of Brahms and Beethoven and all these guys, almost every concert was a new music concert. To play something old was really an exception.

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

With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.

I think truth as an idea should be left to the philosophers and perhaps religious leaders and politicians, and professional people who deal with that idea.