Every orchestra I know, every opera house I know, is desperately looking around trying to find new talent, new composing talent, supporting young composers, supporting new ideas, supporting new ways of getting the message across.

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

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

If we always thought like that, why would we study physics, why would we think of cosmology, why would we do any kind of research? Because we know already so much that there is no one person who can contain all that information.

In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been.

I feel very free and very happy to be a composer.

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.