When we're doing our lessons, the teacher doesn't say, 'Ready, set, work,' They say, 'Ready, set, play,' and I always took that word seriously.

Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.

Music is so powerful, it needs to be used for some kind of redeeming work. To lift peoples spirits, to lift their souls.

The audience is like my instrument. It's not just me up there, it's collaborative.

I’m not a scholar or a psychologist, so I don’t really think about why. But I do think about what it means to sing to and with people, to offer music to them, and to ask them to spend time with me.

When we're doing our lessons, the teacher doesn't say, 'Ready, set, work,' They say, 'Ready, set, play,' and I always took that word seriously.

I couldn't do anything without faith. I couldn't open up my eyes, I couldn't walk, I couldn't speak, I couldn't sing.