The philharmonic became such a journey and adventure in my life, and a deeply satisfying thing.

This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.

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

Coming from a sort of very rigid European type of training to this culture which is just a little more open - a lot more open, and kind of curious, and asking different sorts of questions.Because the problem for me was that the European modernist movement in the '70s was all about right or wrong. Some things were right and you were dealing with the truth, as it were, and then some things were wrong and therefore not allowed.

I'm trying to conduct only five months a year, and the rest will be composing time. I'm trying to spend as much as I can out of those months here in L.A., because for creative work, this is a fantastic place.

The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.

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.