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It's just that, when the orchestra look at me, I want them to see a completely involved person who reflects what we rehearsed, and whose function is to make it possible for them to do it.

When you're in a rehearsal room, it's like getting into a car and going on a long journey with everyone's stuff in the back. If you keep stopping the car and going, 'Are you sure we want to go?' and think, 'This is really daunting,' you will get frightened, so you just have to keep ploughing through it.

Good conductors know when to let an orchestra lead itself. Ninety percent of what a conductor does comes in the rehearsal - the vision, the structure, the architecture.

In theater, you have a rehearsal period and you know just who to be.

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.

If you go on stage with the wrong attitude, or something in your performance is off, you can lose an audience in the first minute. That first minute is crucial.

There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

In symphonic music, when you are conducting, you do the same thing. You are feeling the whole orchestra, thinking ahead so you can prepare for a change.

I think, for different types of things, more rehearsal is very important.