There are many types of silence. There is a silence before the note, there is a silence at the end and there is a silence in the middle.

I have heard Ori Kam on several occasions over the last few years and have always been deeply impressed with his playing. He possesses a rare combination of musical talent, technical facility, intelligence, and charisma, and he is undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary young artists I have heard in recent years.

I always maintain that playing in an orchestra intelligently is the best school for democracy. If you play a solo, the conductor and everybody in the orchestra follows you. Then, a few bars later, the main voice goes to another instrument, another group, and then you have to go back into the collective [sound]. The art of playing in an orchestra is being able to express yourself to the maximum but always in relation to something else that is going on.

I'm not naive. I know perfectly well that there isn't a single Arab or Muslim in the world who would say: There has to be a Jewish state in the Middle East.

Today, conducting is a question of ego: a lot of people believe they are actually playing the music.

An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.

Israel's strategy cannot be to constantly confront the Palestinians with the history of the Holocaust, but instead to show them that Israel is a reality.