“ What I love about the word conductor is that it implies a certain electricity passing through. Music is basically air. It is given life somehow, whether it’s the pull of a bow or it’s a wind player blowing. Then I, in the center, take all this energy, all this air, and try to influence it, coax it – to produce something that is dramatic."
“ The more I conduct, the more I have the feeling that just how I stand there, move my eyes, the expression on my face, my whole attitude has somehow become 10 times more important than how I wave my arms.”
“ The baton is a tool. Some conductors are brilliant at doing everything with the stick, and there are many ways to beat . . . from march band to the most exotic, fluid ways of making music; from neat and tidy to very dramatic. I tend to be a little bit more pugilistic in my approach. It’s just my body type. I’m kind of squat, and I get involved.”
“ The conductor is the most important person in an opera performance. Not for ego reasons, but because he’s the person who can bring all the strands together, and yes, I’m taking the audience on a journey, because that’s what they’re there for. God knows what they’ve experienced during the day before they come to the theater in the evening.”
“ My job is not to steer a piece of music like a NASCAR driver, but to guide it.”
“ Musicians . . . have their own heart, their own expression, their own poetry. To have an attitude of love, of wonder – a state of wonder about the music; I think that’s important because I think we’re in a business where we’re very privileged.”