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

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

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

I think the atmosphere of a Prom concert can change your life, in the best way. It's so deep, the feeling you have there. The audience is so close, and there are so many of them, that you feel they are almost embracing you.

I wanted to play my violin and have my musical expression through the instrument. But then I was really young when I had my first opportunity to conduct.

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.