Money and corruption are ruining the land, crooked politicians betray the working man, pocketing the profits and treating us like sheep, and we're tired of hearing promises that we know they'll never keep.
We made some mistakes. We had some managers we didn't like and had to get rid of, and that cost some money. Stuff like that. But overall, we did really well.
Some musical directors have more chutzpah. They pick up the phone and talk people into giving. I prefer to call and say 'thank you' after the money has been contributed.
For anyone who doesn't have that connection with Mozart, I urge those people to go and find some of his music, because it can quite genuinely make you just glad to be alive.
An hour of violin lessons in Berlin is an hour where you get the child interested in music. An hour in a violin lesson in Palestine is an hour away from violence, is an hour away from fundamentalism.
I thought that I would like to be affiliated with some school or institution. As time went on, I also decided on the subject that I wanted to get involved with in addition to music: it was Black Studies.
Anything I do has to have integrity, so if you just want to make music, it's not difficult finding support. The hard part for a publicist or manager is making a star.
When people say, 'Your music was the music of the Seventies,' I say, 'So was discoteque.' The Seventies was also the highest peak of heavy metal. Pick a genre - they were all alive.
The 1960s were big for folk music, and the Kingston Trio led the way. They were the ones who started it all. The music was fresh and alive. College kids loved it and their parents did, too.
Composers most identified with the chamber music form are Corelli, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and, of course, Bach. Of course, Bach. If there is any one composer who gives us reason and emotion, it is Bach.
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 grew up on Bach and Beethoven, and now I'm listening to more modern composers who I can't even name. But since I'm constantly doing music, it's difficult to have that quality time to listen to music and do classical stuff.
My mom and I were super tight. I think she really wanted me to be an artist, you know? She used to like to tell people she wanted to be Beethoven's mother. That was her thing. She wanted to be the mother of this person.
It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.
The conductor's gift does not always go hand in hand with that of composition; indeed, the union is found much more seldom than is popularly believed.
The composers could no longer direct all performances in person, and so the responsibility of interpreting their works in the spirit in which they had been conceived was placed upon conductors.
I have often heard the statement made by foreign singers, as a demonstrated fact, that the German artists are artists in feeling indeed, and serious in their devotion, but that their singing is crude.
When you hear a large symphony orchestra. for instance, in a concert hall, there's a big, sweeping sound that just doesn't get on to a record.
I am always hearing from Israelis, 'Oh, CNN is anti-Israel,' or 'BBC is against us.' But no, they are reporting facts.
Open rehearsals reach people who might not otherwise hear the Philharmonic - people on fixed incomes, people who can't move easily at night, students.
I say the same thing about the death of James Wait. "Oh, well -- he wasn't going to write the Beethoven's Ninth Symphony anyway.
