When people feel that something really special is happening on the stage, things change.

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 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.

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

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.

My material life is simple.

I studied music since I was four years old, and from that moment I became part of a family. And that family has taught me things; not only musical things, but things I have to face in life, and that is where the success of the system lies