Conducting was just something that happened by fluke.

We're not talking about an elite art form from the price point of view. We have a building in L.A. that is incredibly open, exciting, inviting, and all that, and there's no reason for this music not to be part of everybody's everyday life.

I think truth as an idea should be left to the philosophers and perhaps religious leaders and politicians, and professional people who deal with that idea.

The sort of commercial parameters of classical music changed after the [World War II] , and the whole industry became more backward-looking.

I realized that the European dogma is not necessarily the only way to look at things.

Of course, if you think of a European or American household in the '50s, so what were the things that when people started climbing up the ladder, what did they buy? A fridge, a TV, I think piano was the number three item in say '53 or '54.

Conducting was just something that happened by fluke.