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

Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.

If you're curious, if you have a capacity for wonder, if you're alive, you know all that you need to know [about music].

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.

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

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.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.

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.

Extreme volume in music very often disguises a lack of actually important content.

Knowledge makes us stronger, but power is not supersede by it (knowledge). Vulnerable is power without knowledge. Impracticable is knowledge without power

The easiest kind of relationship for me is with 10 000 people. The hardest is with one.

Check out not to become a man or woman of achievement, but instead seek to become a particular person of price.

I'm not superstitious.

Architectural-form equals social-form

In life you don't regret the things you do, you regret the things you don't do.

Individualism, the love of enterprise, and the pride in personal freedom, have been deemed by Americans not only as their choicest, but their peculiar and exclusive possessions.

Chance and change are busy ever;Man decays, and ages move;But His mercy waneth never;God is wisdom, God is love.

One day you look out and the audience consists of 65,000 people. It's like looking in the mirror and one day you realise you've gone grey.