"'Big Science' started out as an orchestra work called 'It's Cold Outside' which the American Composers Orchestra played, and this was something that I consider something of a failure. I don't really know how to make an orchestra sound and [...] I found that my ideal instrumentation is a few electronic instruments mixed with real ones which are sometimes processed, sometimes not. My favourite combination is violin and saxophone and then other things added to that.
[...]
One of the things about writing works for an orchestra is first of all [that] it's hard for an orchestra to spend much rehearsal time on new work and also you hear it a day before it's actually performed for the first time. So it kind-of is a huge shock and you realize "oh, I should have had the French horns do that" and it's really too late then.
[...]
['It's Cold Outside'] was a work for tape and orchestra. I couldn't quite leave audio tape out of it."
(Laurie Anderson, 1984)
