I've watched the demise of the Hollywood orchestra, the house orchestras of the big studios.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was never that into the movies. Never. Even as a youngster. I became interested in movie music only because of the studio orchestras in Hollywood.
My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances; we've become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.
An orchestra full of stars can be a disaster.
Symphonic orchestras have almost become a glut in the market.
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.
I miss the standard of the New York Philharmonic's playing very much. It has certainly been a high point in my life.
I will never master this craft. Orchestras are very, very forthcoming with me.
Sometimes there is a 36-piece orchestra going off in my stomach.
I've been lucky to conduct the very best orchestras in the world: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Berlin, the London Philharmonic.
Yes was a band where we could explore some of those ideas, but I knew that if I wanted to get into orchestral music and make a living at it, movies seemed to be a perfect spot.