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The New York Philharmonic is a tremendous opportunity, a great orchestra.

It seems always to have been difficult to have been a New York Philharmonic conductor because of the nature of New York. We are in direct competition with the great orchestras in the world who come to play in our hall or in Carnegie, and we are constantly compared. I think that 's a good thing.

And to understand this, I think this is a most important point where I would like always to be understood what we do with the New York Philharmonic. That the meaning of the music is number one.

I've been lucky to conduct the very best orchestras in the world: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Berlin, the London Philharmonic.

From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good.

I absolutely love the Philharmonic. I also love rock guitar.

I've watched the demise of the Hollywood orchestra, the house orchestras of the big studios.

I did a concert... in September with the Berlin Philharmonic... They're great musicians, and there's always something to learn from them.

For years, Jazz At The Philharmonic albums were the only ones of their kind.

I don't know if I miss it per se, but I do miss the fact that there just doesn't seem to be any rock 'n' roll out there anyplace. Everything does seem kind of tame. It's even hard in Manhattan to go out and find a good band to go see.