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.
Daniel: I mean, everybody and their momma knew you don't just come up and talk to Miles Davis. I mean, he may have looked like he was chilling, but he was absorbed. This one hip couple, one of them tried to shake his hand one day. And the guy says, "...
The Southbank Centre Unlimited Festival was a distinct moment in time, an amazing counterpoint to the London 2012 Paralympics. There is no question that a major shift in perspective is taking place, that the world is waking up and greeting - as if fo...
Whatever you do in life, there's content and form; only those two put together create special meaning of a great work of art or great interpretation of music or a great story that you tell.
If we are going to list guitar influences, the biggest one by far is Wes Montgomery. Also, Gary Burton was obviously huge for me in a number of ways. But beyond that, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard.
After a while I thought it didn't make any sense to use a pick. It's kind of like typing with one finger on each hand instead of using all your fingers.
If you play jazz, then you play with your fingers. If you're playing rock, you use a pick. There's really no rhyme or reason to that other than that's just the way it has been.
The belief that we are what the media says we are, what people perceive we are, is soon to be what we think we are. We are treated based on this warped perception. It is hard to get away from it.
If you go to Japan for instance, you should know that they have a different way of playing Beethoven or Brahms. But if you play with them Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn, they have a wonderful light feeling for that.
Over the years it has been my privilege to lead performances with Saint Louis, the National Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and so many other wonderful organizations.
I don't really think about retiring. I will retire just before people start saying, 'I knew Leonard Slatkin when he conducted well.'
As the director of an opera, it is my responsibility to unify the style of the particular performance, but one can certainly approach the piece from different points of view. That's what makes it interesting and keeps it alive.
So much of what I create has been due to the influence of Miles Davis and Donald Byrd, and so many of those that have passed on. Their music, their legacy lives on with the rest of us because we are so highly influenced by their experience and what t...
It's wonderful doing concerts in places like New York and London, but I feel a responsibility to also bring my work home, to bring world-class, classical music to Somerset.
I really live a simple life and don't need very much to feel good and happy. Don't get me wrong; I believe you should get what you earn. Sometimes you have to fight for it.
Miles Davis was a part of my life from 1947 on. I was born in 1941 and I first heard him in 1947 on a 78 rpm. And then I followed his career, starting with his first solo album in 1951. He was an icon and inspiration and a mentor to me.
It's Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony I'm really looking forward to. Simon Rattle does it perfectly: he understands its primal rhythmic life force, and he and the wonderful Berliners make it a sheer riot of orchestral colour.
I like to express certain things that happen in my life, the joy of spring, the birds singing and young babies coming into the world. You know, the whole thing as well as the part I'm not happy with, the sad part.
I free-form it, rock n' roll it. I'm a creature of risk, so I don't know how I'm going to explore a Beethoven symphony until I'm doing it.
I'm a bit of a Luddite, really: I don't use email much, as I started drowning in it. So I said 'screw this' and dumped my laptop, though I've begun to re-engage with it.
