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I always felt that one day I would have to make the change in my own life, bite the bullet and see what it is to be a composer who conducts rather than the other way around.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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Esa-Pekka Salonen
Age: 66
Born: 1958
Born: June 30
Composer
Conductor
Helsingfors
Change
Bullet
Way
Bite
Make
Bullets
Always
Bites
Would
Composer
Life
Rather
Felt
Around
Conducts

More quotes by Esa-Pekka Salonen

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Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.
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I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly.
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Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.
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I think we are in the process of getting the word out, and we haven't done very well yet. But we are trying.
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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.
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My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.
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Conducting was just something that happened by fluke.
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The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.
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Lots of really interesting people move to U.S and decide to work here, because of this whole attitude and openness. I'm absolutely convinced that this is just the beginning. In a couple decades we will see an even more dramatic change.
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In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.
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The philharmonic became such a journey and adventure in my life, and a deeply satisfying thing.
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There is more openness in LA to possibilities than on the East Coast of America. There is a pioneering spirit there that stems from the reason people went out there in the first place-to find something new.
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In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been.
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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?
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I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.
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We need new art. Old art cannot do that. It can do lots of other things, and of course humanity hasn't changed that much in the last thousand or two thousand years.So that the old Greek dramas are still at the very heart, core, of human experience, but still we need new stuff.
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I think if you would like to describe composing as an act with one word, slow would be the word.
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The players never think they project enough. In a hall that seats 3,300 people, it's a very scary thing to play so quietly that you can barely hear yourself.
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It would be very tempting to say that why paint because we have Michelangelo, we have Leonardo [Da Vinci], we have all these guys. Why waste your time, because most likely you're not going to be on that level anyway.
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Our audience, it has been a more difficult process for classical music audiences around the world, and I'm not completely certain why.
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