I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.

I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly.

Conducting is intensely social. You work with a hundred people every day. You collaborate, you try to focus their thoughts, you try to give them a concept, you try to inspire them, and it's actually exhausting.

This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.

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

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 classical music industry, has been an industry of covers. So we do covers, and if I compare this with the rock and pop side, what is the most exciting event?