It's easier to interest a conservative audience in pushing the musical boundaries than to involve a young audience used to very noisy, assertive music in something like Schubert or Bach because the further back you go, the less bells and whistles there are.

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.

What happens when the music stops? Where does it go?

But those musics do not address the larger kind of architecture in time that classical music does, whatever each one of us knows that classical music must mean.

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

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

The big difference between human happiness and sadness? Thirty-seven freakin' vibrations.