Quote

When I do things, like, with Josh Grobin, or he has so many fans, and I get people after my concerts, classical concerts, all the time coming back and saying, 'Never heard of you until I heard the song with Josh Grobin.' Then they're now classical music fans, which is something I think we need to reach a wider audience.

I find a lot of up-and-coming musicians I enjoy, present them to my viewers - and hopefully inflate the growth of these artists by putting them in front an audience that wouldn't have been aware of them.

I have loads of issues with the way classical music is presented. It has been too reverential, too 'high art' - if you're not in the club, they're not going to let you join. It's like The Turin Shroud: don't touch it because it might fall apart.

We have to go and show these people what classical music is. We say sometimes that classical music has a small audience, but it's because people don't have the chance to be closer to it.

Classical music is something that we're very passionate about, but we always thought it was presented in a stuffy way.

I have no doubt that there are great people about though... the thing of it is, nothing to this day moves me like classical music (Debussy, Vaughn Williams).

We are fans of Mozart and Beethoven, as well 'South Park' and Borat. We believe that we can attract many people who eschew the serious ambiance of concert halls and don't go to classical music concerts because of such reasons. However, there is a 'serious humor' on the stage: funny and ridiculous. That is important!

One of the problems that we face through the media attention that these artists receive is that there has been an awful lot of talk about opera and classical music being elite and being for an elitist group.

We have this idea of artists being on the fringe and being debauched and strange. I don't think that people who commit themselves to classical arts should be exempt from that.