With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.

Music has just as much to do with movement and body as it does soul and intellect.

I started conducting lessons and I realized that this is actually something I like doing.

I always felt that one day I would have to make the change in my own life, bite the bullet and see what it is to be a composer who conducts rather than the other way around.

In Europe, there is so much tradition, and everyone has established ideas as to what art should be and what it has always been.

The players never think they project enough. In a hall that seats 3,300 people, it's a very scary thing to play so quietly that you can barely hear yourself.

Somehow, conductor as this superhuman conduit between the masters and the masterpieces and the immortals.