The nearest figure to myself would be Shakespeare.

Music is a performing art, as any Native American will tell you. It isn't there in the score.

My true function within a society which embraces all of us is to continue an age-old tradition. This tradition is to create images from the depths of the imagination and to give them form, whether visual, intellectual or musical.

The blues are like the fugue in 18th century. It's probably the music that belongs most to our time.

Conductors don't suffer, they are part of the performance.

Shiva danced the world into existence... that's a very nice thought.

I've seldom become nostalgic or settled.