Quote

My music wouldn't sound the way it does if I hadn't had the experience of conducting.

I frequently find after a rehearsal of a performance that I have more breath, and can walk better and climb stairs better than I could before. It's as if I've expanded my lungs doing it. Basically speaking, conducting is quite a healthy profession.

Conducting! A subject, truly, concerning which much might be written, yet scarcely anything of real importance is to be found in books.

People still call me the eternal amateur. After all, professionals are supposed to be able to conduct everything. But I can't unless I feel some connection inside. Conducting is not an end in itself for me.

A conductor should guide rather than command.

I will prove that a great conducting career is expecting me.

I kind of alternate between conducting and playing and kind of juggling those things, but I don't use a baton.

The real art of conducting consists in transitions.

Conducting is more difficult than playing a single instrument. You have to know the culture, to know the score, and to project what you want to hear. Some conductors are well prepared but cannot transmit their ideas to an orchestra, and others are good communicators but have nothing to transmit because they are not absorbed enough in the score.