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.

If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

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

There is such a suspicion in today's world of people who do more than one thing, who aren't specialized.

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.

I discovered that the people of the North are different and there's no way you can make a person from the North similar to a Southerner. They're two different worlds.

The music I turn out these days is the kind of music I want to hear myself.