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Symphonic orchestras have almost become a glut in the market.

Concert-going has become much less the thing to do, while people are still going to opera. This might be a harsh judgment, but it could easily happen that orchestras could slowly atrophy.

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.

As major orchestras around the world are gripped in various kinds of crises and upheaval, we need to be sure that we are bringing up this new generation.

I think conductors do spend too little time with their orchestras.

There's not an orchestra in the world that doesn't have weaknesses. None of us can play everything well. The repertoire is just too big.

An orchestra full of stars can be a disaster.

The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.

I think that the quality of all bands is steadily improving and it is a pleasant thought to me that perhaps the efforts of Sousa's Band have quickened that interest and improved that quality.