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

I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.

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

Sometimes you spend nine months, 10 months, a year writing a piece that you will hear two years later or something like that, and you never see anybody. It's a very different sort of metabolic.

I'm still disturbed if a chord isn't together, but your priorities change as you get older.

Our audience, it has been a more difficult process for classical music audiences around the world, and I'm not completely certain why.

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