Thank God for movie music. It preserves the rich vocabulary in classical music through challenging times.

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.

I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.

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

This extraordinary group has absolutely captivated my imagination, knocked my socks off - what more can I say?

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.

But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands.