I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff.

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

Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other.

The Northern idea of form is more of a process. The various units of the form overlap. You can't tell where some things stop and new things start. This is typical of Sibelius.

There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.

Music has just as much to do with movement and body as it does soul and intellect.

I went to work one morning, and outside my door was Cindy Crawford in a black bra, and I thought that very clearly the building is making progress in integrating itself into various layers of our culture.