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
real believe sake
I don't believe in an annual dose of film music for the sake of it being film music. If we program film music, it will be because there is a real artistic reason for doing so.
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.
play orchestra halls
With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.
country west legacy
This country, and the West Coast, especially, is bad at preserving any cultural legacy.
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.
careers scary conducting
This conducting thing happened. In 1983 I was sucked into this international career, which was a very scary experience.
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.
way sound doe
My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.
rocks sides events
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?
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.
suspects
Anyone who composes and conducts at the same time is immediately suspect, because he must be faking one or the other.
aversion deep-down cerebral
I always had, deep down, a slight aversion toward the purely cerebral in music.
training culture asking
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.
play differences years
In the range of music that we play - roughly 300 years' worth-there really are more similarities than differences.