I have eaten very well in Los Angeles. Marvelously!

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

For me, Venezuela is very important, not just because it's a place I go to conduct, but because my family is there - my wife, my parents and my musical family.

I want to work with the big orchestras. I want to have a big family.

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.

A friend gave me a CD of the 'Pathetique' Symphony as a Christmas present. I went home, and I put on the CD expecting to listen to Tchaikovsky. But it started 'ta ta ta taaa.' It was too long for me. I didn't understand it at first, but then I fell in love, in love, in love.

I love to read different books on completely different subjects at the same time. I cannot focus on one. I read a few pages of literature, then I jump to philosophy and at the same time I'm reading biographies of Mahler.