It's a physical challenge. It's a spiritual challenge. I'm studying almost every day a different symphony, not returning to any one for a week.

Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra, I learn. They feel everything, they enjoy everything, they have amazing energy.

Music is a fundamental human right

For me to rehearse with a children's orchestra a Mahler symphony was to really work. We had three or four weeks of rehearsal with the orchestra, every day eight or nine hours, putting the First together. I had been conducting Tchaikovsky a lot and Beethoven, but Mahler was different.

I set out to create a means whereby music could be a way of vindicating the rights of the masses.

I think that I need to learn a lot, a lot.

I have eaten very well in Los Angeles. Marvelously!