Part of my big message with all this is that if you are alive, you know all you need to know about the message of classical music, because more than any other music, it is about the way life really is.

Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.

Part of my mission is simply that: to bring the world of the arts, particularly classical music, closer to people so they don't feel that it is something remote that they have to specially prepare themselves for, or dress up for.

One of my central maxims is how a major part of what a conductor tries to do is get a large group of people to agree on where "now" actually is.

A conundrum of music is that music brings people together, yet to become a skilled musician involves a certain amount of lonely time in which you're just figuring it out, practicing.

Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.

Classical music is a wonderful 1200 year-old tradition that witnesses everything that it has meant and what it means right now to be human.