Joshua Bell Quotes

The conductor must breathe life into the score. It is you and you alone who must expose it to the understanding, reveal the hidden jewel to the sun at the most flattering angles.

There are two types of conductors. One is the good conductor who can do passionate music but also listen to the singers and do the orchestra. And then there are great conductors, who have their own opinion on the music, who are ruling everything - and not listening much to the singers, but the orchestra play amazingly.

The conductor is the artistic leader and sometimes cultural arbiter of his or her community. It is their leadership that is looked to and should anything go wrong, they are the persons taking most of the heat.

It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine.

I do basically what a conductor does with a baton, except I also play along with the orchestra. So I have to juggle the roles of playing the concertmaster; sometimes I drop the violin and wave my arms.

Let me say that I've never thought to conduct because the conductor has to think to the music before the orchestra. And the orchestra comes later. For me, it's terrible.

A conductor can do wild things which can feel forced, but if you're directing from within the orchestra, you can't do that, things have to feel natural.

I approach everything as chamber music. Even with Beethoven symphonies, I lead from the violin and basically encourage the orchestra to think of it as a giant string quartet.

It's different for people who have not seen a symphony conductor conduct from a chair. I feel very connected to the orchestra in a way that a conductor sometimes does not feel. I think it's more visceral.

All the conductor has to do is stand back and try not to get in the way. Mozart is doing all the work.

There is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

A music director cannot and should not be chosen on the basis of a first date. It is not so difficult to make a good impression with a single appearance, usually containing some of a conductor's party pieces, works they have performed successfully many times before.

I mean, the great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them.

The orchestra confides in me about their music director or their conductor, and I've never seen a conductor that's been liked by everyone.

Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra - not choreography to the audience.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It's still their ball game. It's their show. I think any successful composer learns how to dance around the director's impulses.

I don't feel that the conductor has real power. The orchestra has the power, and every member of it knows instantaneously if you're just beating time.

A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.

I always imagined that to bring an orchestra to play together is not enough for a conductor.

Conducting is more difficult than playing a single instrument. You have to know the culture, to know the score, and to project what you want to hear. Some conductors are well prepared but cannot transmit their ideas to an orchestra, and others are good communicators but have nothing to transmit because they are not absorbed enough in the score.

The respect for a musical score must come from the director... If the director has no power and has to surrender to budgetary constraints, this is where we have the problem.

A great conductor is an alchemical force: someone who can absorb the historical weight of a famous melody, the expectations of an audience, and the mercurial brilliance of a host of musicians, and shape them all to his or her interpretative ends.

Through conducting, you express through your arms, through your face and even the body, what you want to tell, so the musicians of the orchestra understand.

At the end of the day, I am singing the composer's creation, and I follow the instructions given to me. What I feel may be a right take may not work for the composer or his vision on how he thinks the song should sound.