The real deep text of music and the whole reason that it has continued with the profundity and urgency that it has for over a thousand years, has to do with what the notes say, what the notes witness, different experiences of hope or doubt that people are able to distill and encode and pass on in this way.

When I first was conducting as guest conductor in Europe 25 years ago, I would propose doing American pieces and grudgingly it would be accepted from time to time.

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

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

The world changes when there's music in it.

Pop music, which I deeply admire and wish I could play better than I can, is based on expressing one mood, one feeling at a time. Classical music is by its very nature involved with different kinds of music, constantly transforming one another, which is more akin to the way our experience of life really is.

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