With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community.

Los Angeles is a very special city. It's a great ethnic mix, a great cultural mix.

My main goal, and it's a big one, is that every child has a chance to get close to music - as a right - that as they have access to food, health, and education, they get the chance to have art and culture - especially music.

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

The challenge is not so much to change the sound. The challenge is to connect and to create something special.

I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music.

My relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra brought me many times to London and I will always reflect positively on that early period of development with them - their patience, their warmth, their dedication.