I've learned a lot from being a chameleon, sort of adopting the musical personalities of who I was playing with.
Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, and Mozart settled down day after day to the job in hand. They didn't waste time waiting for inspiration.
And, we have no such thing as a budget anymore. Our manager freaks when we show him the bill. We're lavish to the bone, but all our money goes back into the product.
I'd rather have people really be able to step back and get their money's worth and look at me as a true artist than somebody who is just regurgitating other material.
I've been given my money. Nobody has ever beaten me out of one quarter. And that's all I've ever been concerned about.
I like a women who's got some balls, some strength. As long as I can beat her at arm wrestling, that's fine.
That's one strength that Stevie has. She's really not a strong instrumentalist in any way. Her instrument is her voice and her words. And it keeps her focused on the very center of that.
I admire Tom Ades: he's a brilliant conductor, and he gets just the right hard, brilliant sound from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Russian music.
Brazilian music has many of the ingredients that I strive for in my own music: Strong melodies and a disciplined but intense rhythmic concept, and interesting harmonies.
I tend to not want to put labels or categories on the music, only because people come with preconceived ideas about what they're going to hear, or won't come for this reason.
The only thing that interests me in music is to be able to reach into the, let's call it, 'collective unconscious' of what is noblest in the human spirit, the way you find in the music of Mozart and Beethoven and Verdi that wonderful quality that not...
Everywhere in the world, music enhances a hall, with one exception: Carnegie Hall enhances the music.
I've heard some tunes in recent years that were pretty close to that same idea. The idea was you turn on the radio and you want to hear some music and up comes a commercial.
I'm playin' music for a certain type of person. Fortunately, there are more and more of us. At least there are more comin' to see me than there were 30 years ago or so.
I cannot listen to Beethoven or Mahler or Chopin or Bach when I write because those composers require you stop what you are doing and listen.
Everybody should have his personal sounds to listen for - sounds that will make him exhilarated and alive or quiet and calm.
Conducting! A subject, truly, concerning which much might be written, yet scarcely anything of real importance is to be found in books.
I'm very much tied to the state of Israel, but I am against their policy of settlements in Palestine.
New York is really the place to be; to go to New York, you're going to the center of the world, the lion's den.
All these people who scream about Kashmir being an armed camp are in fact responsible for keeping it that way.
I am often critical of Israel's policies when in the country, but then feel defensive of them when overseas.
