Quotes by Esa-Pekka Salonen

About Esa-Pekka Salonen:

Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish orchestral conductor and composer. He is currently Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, Conductor Laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Composer-In-Residence at the New York Philharmonic, and Artistic Director and cofounder of the Baltic Sea Festival.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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

Esa-Pekka Salonen

This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

If the seams are showing, there is something wrong with the performance or the construction of the piece. This idea is completely at odds with our modern visual experience, because everything today is based on montage.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

I'm still disturbed if a chord isn't together, but your priorities change as you get older.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

I can't imagine how many first performances I've done, perhaps 500. Some of them have been very good, and some of course very bad.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

I love a visceral sound, the kind that hits you in the belly.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Pulse as an active means of expression, Stravinsky and Beethoven are the two masters of that.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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

Esa-Pekka Salonen

I feel very free and very happy to be a composer.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

There is such a suspicion in today's world of people who do more than one thing, who aren't specialized.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

As we watch TV or films, there are no organic transitions, only edits. The idea of A becoming B, rather than A jumping to B, has become foreign.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

After working with Ligeti I began to hear Brahms and Beethoven differently.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Author Bio

  • NameEsa-Pekka Salonen
  • DescriptionFinnish conductor
  • BornJune 30, 1958
  • CountryFinland
  • ProfessionConductor; Composer
  • AwardsLitteris Et Artibus