I just want to play for Hindus and Muslims that sit together. That's all I want to do.
You might say that Richard Wagner was the Queen Victoria of Europe. He had musical children everywhere!
Though there is such a rich tradition of culture and arts, I have never been invited to perform at a concert in South India.
There are certainly talented instrumentalists coming from India. I see them performing all over the world.
There is a school in Israel called Hand in Hand which I support. There Arab and Jewish students study together on a daily basis.
A brick could be used as a musical instrument. But it would take someone as deaf as Beethoven to enjoy it.
Some things can be perfectly expressed by sound alone and images would only be disturbing. Other times, sound would be possible, but visuals are much stronger and closer to what I want to express and then again, they sometimes overlap perfectly.
I remember playing football dressed in peculiar costumes with some friends in France and laughing so hard we couldn't even stand up, let alone kick the ball.
A singer for me is more like someone who is standing alone with a microphone like Scott Walker, rather than someone who is bashing a plank and is spitting all over a microphone.
But somehow, I felt no inclination to be interested in it in any amateur way, let alone professional, until suddenly I became interested. And the first thing I did was to compose: not play an instrument, but to compose.
For people who are really talented, what you don't say becomes extremely important. You have to judge what to say and what to leave alone so you can let the talent develop.
Music should probably provide answers in terms of lyrical content, and giving people a sense of togetherness and oneness, as opposed to being alone in their thoughts and dilemmas or regrets or happiness or whatever.
I don't treat the band like I'm above them or that they're a hired hand for me. We've never worked that way. So I'm a team player. I would be very uncomfortable having to do this alone.
In science, if you don't do it, somebody else will. Whereas in art, if Beethoven didn't compose the 'Ninth Symphony,' no one else before or after is going to compose the 'Ninth Symphony' that he composed; no one else is going to paint 'Starry Night' ...
On behalf of all that is good and melodic, Ludwig van Beethoven, I apologize.
You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
There's not an orchestra in the world that doesn't have weaknesses. None of us can play everything well. The repertoire is just too big.
If you approach an opera as though it were something that always went a certain way, that's what you get. I approach an opera as though I didn't know it.
His name, even, is part of the marketing scheme, I mean, Thelonious Sphere Monk - how can you think of a better name to fit his style of playing?
People come from a certain generation and a certain whole way of looking at things, and you really do become a prisoner of your own world.
I think there's a poet who wrote once a tragedy by Shakespeare, a symphony by Beethoven and a thunderstorm are based on the same elements. I think that's a beautiful line.
