A respected tenure at the Los Angeles Philharmonic

Perhaps it's fitting that this article ran in the New York Times:

On Thursday night Esa-Pekka Salonen conducted his next-to-last program as the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And the most tangible manifestation of his galvanizing 17-year tenure with the orchestra may be the place the program was performed: Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s home since 2003.

In the Thursday performance, Salonen's own Violin Concerto was premiered:

Mr. Salonen, with his vast experience as a conductor, is so skilled at orchestration that every piece he writes, including this concerto, has a brilliant surface and wondrous sound. In the late 1990s he had a sort of California epiphany, realizing that without his modernist mentors looking over his shoulder, he could write the way he wanted to.

Perhaps all the modernist mentors were safely far away in New York? More here.