It's not that people don't like classical music. It's that they don't have the chance to understand and to experience it.

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.

You learn a lot about each other from a tour, musically and humanly.

In my imagination yes, I remember, when I was six years old, I was conducting all this concert in my house. But now it's real.

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.

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.