You can't have Bach, Mozart and Beethoven as your favorite composers. They simply define what music is!

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.

Classical music is an unbroken, living tradition that goes back over 1,000 years, and every one of those years has had something unique and powerful to say to us about what it's like to be alive.

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.

And what classical music does best and must always do more, is to show this kind of transformation of moods, to show a very wide psychological voyage. And I think that's something that we as classical musicians have underestimated.

The way you survive in the performing arts is by having a sense of your audience, and doing things which entertain and satisfy the audience, but in a more important way, cause the audience to question many things.

I have a strange situation as far as my name is concerned, because of course, what should my name really be? Is it my traditional Jewish name? Or this curious name my parents put together, partially to honor departed family members, and partially to keep me away from the absolute craziness of my grandparents' fame and the intrusiveness of their fans? So many people call me "MTT," and some do say, "Oh Maestro," and some are comfortable calling me Michael.