Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen
Esa-Pekka Salonen: ; born June 30, 1958) 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...
NationalityFinnish
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth30 June 1958
CountryFinland
functions los people
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.
barely hall quietly scary seats
The players never think they project enough. In a hall that seats 3,300 people, it's a very scary thing to play so quietly that you can barely hear yourself.
composer very-happy feels
I feel very free and very happy to be a composer.
ideas house trying
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.
ravel ive-learned masters
I've learned a lot from the masters of orchestration, like Ravel and Stravinsky.
firsts hills higher
Once you get over the first hill, there is always a new, higher one lurking, of course.
live-concerts understanding progress
Every day we make more progress toward understanding the concert hall.
morning doors black
I went to work one morning, and outside my door was Cindy Crawford in a black bra, and I thought that very clearly the building is making progress in integrating itself into various layers of our culture.
hands class ideas
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.
problem conducting composing
There will have to be times when I'm not conducting because I'm composing. I haven't solved that problem, and perhaps I never will.
careers scary conducting
This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.
ideas typical form
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.
ideas jumping watches
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.
nice character thinking
The Royal Festival Hall in London is nice; people hang out there. I think this inviting, non-exclusive character is very important.