New York for a long time was a kind of conductor's graveyard.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Well the thing is that the New York of 1846 to 1862 was very different from downtown New York now. Really nothing from that period still exists in New York.
Nothing lasts in New York. The life that is lived there, however, is as intense as it gets.
There's a long tradition of people from the South living in New York City.
Washington Is kind of dead. It's a nice place, but It's not like New York.
New York is still where I live most of the time.
In the early '90s, New York was a pretty depressing place.
Living in New York City is one constant, ongoing literary pilgrimage. For 20 years, I lived among the ghosts of great writers and walked where they had walked.
The trains were the beating heart of the New York graffiti scene.
I guess, as a conductor, one goes in and out of fashion. Your career starts with a bang, everyone thinks you're wonderful, and then with middle age, something happens and you go into the wilderness.
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.