Esa-Pekka Salonen Way Quotations

Los Angeles is just a more open place. The way L.A. functions is that people give you a forum. They say, Show us what you can do.

I realized that the European dogma is not necessarily the only way to look at things.

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.

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.