When I was a kid, three years old, I couldn't walk by the piano without reaching up and trying to play a few notes on it. There are kids who are just drawn to listening to music and dancing to it and trying to conduct.

When I was a kid, three years old, I couldn't walk by the piano without reaching up and trying to play a few notes on it. There are kids who are just drawn to listening to music and dancing to it and trying to conduct.

Part of my big message with all this is that if you are alive, you know all you need to know about the message of classical music, because more than any other music, it is about the way life really is.

They are representations of many shared hours of collaboration between us all. That's the real nature of the relationship the orchestra and I are trying to build.

Being an American musician means being adventurous.

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.

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.