Growing up in Hollywood, like I did, I have a passion and a love for the movies, so I go to the cinema all the time.
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.
What is the source of power of musicians who are financially browbeaten, most of whom work for minimum wage or less? Musicians who cannot even afford to buy tickets to operas or concerts in which they themselves perform?
I loved Debussy, Stravinsky, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, anything with romantic melodies, especially the nocturnes. Nietzsche was a hero, especially with 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra.' He gets a bad rap; he's very misunderstood. He's a maker of individuals, and ...
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.
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'm very conscious that I want the dance audience to respond and respect what I'm doing, so I'm always very true to the music and I honour the music in the way I see it - I don't mess around with the music.
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.
I don't start a piece knowing exactly what effect it's going to have. There is a seed of an idea that I could never articulate, right at the beginning of the piece, literally like one cell.
We could ask artists from abroad to come in too, so that there could be a mixing and matching of skills from Europe, America and here which would widen our world.
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.
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.
(reporter interviewing Broadway dancer Tommy Tune:) 'Do you think that greats like Fred Astaire possessed some kind of magic?' (pause) 'No. Magic possesses them'.
In his autobiography Stravinsky relates that the first music he remembers was made by a peasant, working his hand in his armpit to produce a rhytmic farting.
I'm tired of being your best friend. I'm tired of being second best. I won't settle for that anymore. It's all or nothing, Schuyler. You have to decide. Him or me. - Oliver Hazzard-Perry
There was still no likelihood that we could make a living from dance. We were doing it because we loved it... We realized how full we felt; we were surrounded by music and dancing and joy.
Dancers, many dancers today can do so much technically. You can give them steps that are complicated, then more complicated, pyrotechnical - and they can execute these steps to perfection. But to do simple steps with a pure classical line, that is tr...
I am different because I have better schooling, better understanding of the line, gesture, how feet working, positions. They taught me modern things... and I wanted to give what I had: my schooling.
