Esa-Pekka Salonen

“Technology is not a threat. It's an opportunity.”

“I have always been interested in the concept of flow. In music, in art, in everything.”

“The audience is the final filter. You write for them, ultimately.”

“A concert is not a live CD.”

“My problem is that I'm a modernist. And in the 21st century, that's a problem.”

“Composing is a very lonely business. It’s you and the paper.”

“For me, the sound is the most important thing. The quality of sound.”

“What happens in a concert hall is that people come from all walks of life and they sit together for two hours. It's a beautiful thing.”

“When you have a new piece of music, you have to be very, very careful with it, because you might kill it.”

“The orchestra is a living organism, and the conductor is its brain.”

“You can't be a composer and a conductor at the same time at the highest level. Something has to give.”

“There is no formula for a great concert. It's a miracle every time it happens.”

“Music is the most abstract of all the arts, and for that reason, the most powerful.”

“If you are a musician, you are a servant of the music.”

“I'm not interested in repeating myself. I'm interested in finding new things.”