When you play a concerto with a small orchestra you don't feel it is as important as Carnegie Hall. You try to work out all the little problems. Once that's all done trust comes in.

Anyone could be in the orchestra or sports team or arts club at my school. It was precisely the kind of inclusivity that now meets with a sort of scorn and derision as a prizes-for-all culture that generates only mediocrity. There's something so insulting about the idea that including lots of people means mediocrity.

These groups within a society can he distinguished according as to whether like an army or an orchestra they function as a single body or whether they are united merely to defend their common interests and otherwise function as separate individuals.

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.

There is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

I think actors are getting so much more power these days but I'm not. I stay very much away from the decisions the way in which things are orchestrated what's been changed. I just try to stay completely in the role as the actor and as the character.

My relationship with the Philharmonia Orchestra brought me many times to London and I will always reflect positively on that early period of development with them - their patience their warmth their dedication.

One time I introduced my orchestra as the Shampoo Music Makers instead of the Champagne Music Makers.

Because I don't take money I'll go anywhere and do a benefit concert with almost any orchestra.

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

Chemistry is not anything an executive producer or writer can orchestrate or plan you just hope for it.

On the other hand when I give it closer thought I realize I'm not enough of a dictator to conduct an orchestra because it requires a pretty awful person. When you read these biographies of famous conductors they are all awful people who fail in their private relationships.

My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances we've become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.

Notwithstanding these setbacks the dream of a beautiful American orchestra goes on and I share Dr. King's faith that each year we move inexorably closer to a magnificent opening night.

But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.

It has to be able to play at the maximum expression and communication in every style and the only way you can do that is - like Verdi said - working with a file every day little by little until the orchestra's collective qualities emerge.

Beauty and fullness of tone can be achieved by having the whole orchestra play with high clarinets and a carefully selected number of piccolos.

The Beethoven Experience provided the opportunity to solidify the relationship between the Orchestra and me the Orchestra and me and the public between all of us and the city of New York because Beethoven after all is a really amazing point of reference.

Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra I learn. They feel everything they enjoy everything they have amazing energy.

You can't play a symphony alone it takes an orchestra to play it.