Stravinsky is masterly: his harmony is conceived so precisely that it can only be the way it is.

My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

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.

I don't believe in an annual dose of film music for the sake of it being film music. If we program film music, it will be because there is a real artistic reason for doing so.

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

When we're at the end of The Rite of Spring or of a Bruckner symphony, I want people to feel the music physically.