With El Sistema, you can create orchestras everywhere; then they can decide whether they want to become professional musicians. The aim is not only to create musicians, but to create people.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I love working with an orchestra, but there are many ways to make music.
Orchestras are not used to playing the kind of stuff jazz musicians like to play. It requires a lot of rehearsal and recording time, so it's much easier to do on a synth or sampler. So, we came up with that idea.
I endeavor that all orchestras I conduct sound Central European.
I will never master this craft. Orchestras are very, very forthcoming with me.
With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community.
To have the privileged position of being the guy who is responsible for shaping the entire experience for an audience as opposed to being just one instrument in that orchestra, being an actor, it's all-encompassing.
But still as compared to many, many orchestras in the world, I think you find a lot more new music and living composers on our programs than many other places.
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.
The role of an orchestra in the 21st century isn't just playing, it's about developing future audiences and performers.
That process by which you become a writer is a pretty lonely one. We don't have a group apprenticeship like a violinist might training for an orchestra.