Yes and no. Yes because being immersed in sound, having a profound understanding of the musician's craft, the psychology of the performer, and experiencing the combinations of instrumental sounds you hear when conducting an orchestra, all stimulate my imagination and my writing technique.
No because my admiration, and much more rarely my dislike, for the works I conduct don't influence my personal world as a composer. They allow me to see how my world fits into the greater scheme of things, and sometimes help it develop - you can't ignore your environment - but they don't alter its identity, or at least I hope they don't.

Sometimes I forget that I was a joystick (what a great word!) virtuoso on the legendary AKS synthesiser in the late 70s! This had a strong influence on my ideas about rhythmical phrasing, which is founded on the energy of the sound in movement and more on the principle of the resulting tension/release than on an increasingly complex division of time. The creation of the figures in the first movement of To deep and deeper blue was entirely based on this very fluid rhythmical approach.

The musical gesture is connected to phrasing for me. It allows the development of the various sound parameters to be coherent, to become an explicit entity for the listener. That's a complicated way of describing the most simple and natural thing in the world! Since the 1950s, when these parameters were destroyed by the avant-garde masters, it has been difficult to recreate a melodic universe based on new elements like micro-intervals, timbre mixtures, and more organic rhythmic thought.
The starting point in my writing is the development of the all-important phrase, which allows my ideas to take shape. From there I imagine the structure, or form, as an unfolding drama in sound that develops these ideas using all the resources of the listener's mind (memory, perception of lines, timbres, levels, etc.) to bring forth emotion.

Some recent composers have cleverly reclaimed a spectacular form of virtuosity which makes - as was the case in earlier times - a very direct impact on the listener. I try to take advantage of this virtuosity, which is impressively demonstrated by the musicians in "our" ensembles, to serve the poetic content of my work, rather than making it an end in itself. One of my all-time favourite pieces is Liszt's piano sonata, which encapsulates the sublime contradictions of virtuoso composing.

The final descending phrase of the fourth piece in Webern's Opus 7, played by the violin, is heard at the opening of the second movement of To deep and deeper blue. It emerges as the inner resonance of the seven minutes of constantly intensifying music that have preceded it. It serves as a sort of bridge to a different atmosphere which plunges into a grave mood that oscillates between the utmost sobriety and more lyrical expressiveness. The same phrase returns at the end of the second movement, transposed and superimposed at different speeds, and ultimately leading to silence.

I would say it's diversifying rather than becoming more complex. My rhythmical writing was originally founded on the principles I mentioned earlier, which are more related to polyphony. By returning at certain times to the positive aspects of a more pulsed type of writing (as many current composers are doing!), like in the third movement of To deep and deeper blue, I simplify and clarify the vertical dimension of my writing. But this is just one facet of the music, and its role is, once again, to facilitate expressiveness.