I have eaten very well in Los Angeles. Marvelously!

You have to believe that things will happen, you have to work and love what you're doing.

When you play Mozart, it's so clean, it's so simple. It's the body naked.

Classical music in Venezuela is now something like a pop concert. You can see people screaming or crying because they don't have a ticket.

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.

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.

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.