Conducting was just something that happened by fluke.

I feel that this is my artistic home, and I'm very happy to be a California artist together with many others who are not from here originally but who decided to make this the center of their activities. There's something about that that I find very inspiring and satisfying.

After 30 years I have realized the greatest pleasure I can get is to have learnt.

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

The Northern idea of form is more of a process. The various units of the form overlap. You can't tell where some things stop and new things start. This is typical of Sibelius.

We're not talking about an elite art form from the price point of view. We have a building in L.A. that is incredibly open, exciting, inviting, and all that, and there's no reason for this music not to be part of everybody's everyday life.

Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other.