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.

If you're alive, you have all the experience necessary to understand classical music.

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.

Being an American musician means being adventurous.

If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].

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.