Latest Esa-Pekka Salonen Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• We're not talking about an elite art form from the price point of view. We have a building in L.A. that is incredibly open, exciting, inviting, and all that, and there's no reason for this music not to be part of everybody's everyday life.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Art, Views, Talking

  Source: www.pbs.org

• If I were in a position to announce a public competition to coin a new word, I would do so right now.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Competition, Coins, Position

  Source: www.pbs.org

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

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Looks, Way, Dogma

  Source: www.pbs.org

• We're dealing with music that is being played by traditional instruments in a specifically built building called a concert hall.
  But classical is not - the reference is wrong, because classical on one hand refers to one period in musical history, which is Mozart, Hayden, Beethoven, which is a fine period in musical history, but it was a while ago.On the other hand, it sort of alludes to some kind of "class," which A, is not true; B, is kind of detrimental to the whole idea. Because the point is that this music is available and it's actually relatively reasonably priced.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Class, Ideas, Hands

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Coming from a sort of very rigid European type of training to this culture which is just a little more open - a lot more open, and kind of curious, and asking different sorts of questions.Because the problem for me was that the European modernist movement in the '70s was all about right or wrong. Some things were right and you were dealing with the truth, as it were, and then some things were wrong and therefore not allowed.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Training, Culture, Asking

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I think truth as an idea should be left to the philosophers and perhaps religious leaders and politicians, and professional people who deal with that idea.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Religious, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: www.pbs.org

• 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."

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Journey, Order, Years

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The philharmonic became such a journey and adventure in my life, and a deeply satisfying thing.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Adventure, Journey, Satisfying

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I'm trying to conduct only five months a year, and the rest will be composing time. I'm trying to spend as much as I can out of those months here in L.A., because for creative work, this is a fantastic place.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Years, Creative, Trying

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I feel that this is my artistic home, and I'm very happy to be a California artist together with many others who are not from here originally but who decided to make this the center of their activities. There's something about that that I find very inspiring and satisfying.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Home, Artist, California

  Source: www.pbs.org

• 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.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Couple, Attitude, Moving

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I'm composing more than before. I'm cutting down on conducting.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Cutting, Conducting, Composing

  Source: www.pbs.org

• There is something very special about this part of the world [U.S], which is the openness and the curiosity and the lack of prejudice and the lack of generally accepted norms as to what art should be and how an artist's career should go and all that.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Art, Careers, Curiosity

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The biggest difference between U.S and most European big cities is that in a place like London, for instance, there are five orchestras, and there's a bloody competition between these five orchestras.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Differences, Cities, Competition

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I like this idea of identification with the local team. I think it's great. That's what an orchestra should be. It's an orchestra for its hometown, and it serves the people.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Team, Thinking, Ideas

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I think we are in the process of getting the word out, and we haven't done very well yet. But we are trying.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Thinking, Trying, Done

  Source: www.pbs.org

• I think we still do have a PR problem in the sense that these institutions portray themselves quite often as a museum without the contemporary wing. For a young cutting-edge person, why would you get into that sort of business, which is very clearly geared towards dead or almost dead people?

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Cutting, Thinking, Museums

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Every orchestra I know, every opera house I know, is desperately looking around trying to find new talent, new composing talent, supporting young composers, supporting new ideas, supporting new ways of getting the message across.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Ideas, House, Trying

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Our industry [classic music] has kind of retarded into this kind of endless cover-producing thing, and it's a pity.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Classic, Kind, Pity

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Of course performing talent, that's clear. Maybe this is not so well-known among young people who are interested in music, who are talented in music, but they're trying to figure out how to go about it.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  People, Trying, Talent

  Source: www.pbs.org

• 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?

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Rocks, Sides, Events

  Source: www.pbs.org

• The sort of commercial parameters of classical music changed after the [World War II] , and the whole industry became more backward-looking.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  War, World, Classical Music

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Of course, if you think of a European or American household in the '50s, so what were the things that when people started climbing up the ladder, what did they buy? A fridge, a TV, I think piano was the number three item in say '53 or '54.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Thinking, Piano, Numbers

  Source: www.pbs.org

• Classic music somehow changed, and it changed between the first and the second world wars, and somehow what happened was that the hero that had been the composer, the hero now was the performer, and especially the conductor.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  War, Hero, Firsts

  Source: www.pbs.org

• There was this kind of mildly annoying mythology about conductor Like biker should riding a Harley-Davidson on an LP cover, and wearing a sort of a leather suit.

  Esa-Pekka Salonen

  Suits, Riding, Bikers

  Source: www.pbs.org