Andris Nelsons Quotes

As major orchestras around the world are gripped in various kinds of crises and upheaval, we need to be sure that we are bringing up this new generation.

It's hard to find an emblem of cultural, national pride that burns as bright as Israel's success in classical music.

The music lovers of London and the country deserve to have something where orchestras can flourish. You have no idea how wonderful an orchestra like the London Symphony Orchestra can sound in a great concert hall.

In Hamburg, there are three major orchestras, an opera house, and one of the great concert-hall acoustics in Europe at the Laeiszhalle, in a town a fifth the size of London. And that's not unusual. In Germany, there are dozens of towns with two or three orchestras. The connection with music goes very, very deep.

Music was around in my family in two ways. My mother would occasionally sing to me, but I was mostly stimulated by the classical music my father had left behind. I had an ear for music, I suppose, so that's what began my interest in music.

A few years later, my Uncle David took me to the Earle Theatre to hear Duke Ellington.

I have observed, too, that the people of the many countries that I have visited are showing an ever increasing interest in the classical and traditional music of their own cultures.

On the corner of 57th and 7th Avenue sits the most famous concert hall in the world. No less a figure than when Tchaikovsky led the first performances in 1891. Virtually every major artist has performed there. There is simply no place like it. The first time I stepped foot in Carnegie Hall was in 1964.

What's happened - in our country, anyhow - is that the young people have shied away from the formality of the concert hall, that tie - and - tails philharmonic image.

When I hear that young people have come to the theater for the first time to listen to opera, I'm very happy. Because it's the same thing that happened to me as a child. When I first heard the tenor voice, I immediately fell in love with this kind of music.

Symphonic orchestras have almost become a glut in the market.

I miss the standard of the New York Philharmonic's playing very much. It has certainly been a high point in my life.

Cleveland is really good about recognizing its artists because of the Arts Council.

I grew up listening to hipster jazz and classical records... we went and watched ballet and orchestras - lots of cool stuff. Which I'm really grateful for - it's pretty nice being introduced to that when you're little.

I also have a big love of classical music played on piano because this is the environment I grew up in my brother being one of the great masters in this world.

I look at raising funds for The Perlman Music Program as a challenge and as a way to provide opportunities for people who care about the future of classical music.

Everywhere in the world, music enhances a hall, with one exception: Carnegie Hall enhances the music.

The classical music scene was completely unfamiliar to me. It was something that I didn't have the most fun associations around. A lot of people don't - they think of older generations and stuffiness. But it's not. You listen to the Overture of 1812, and you can hear a rock n' roll catharsis.

My upbringing made me think that real legitimate music is written, not heard.

Composers dialogue - and obsessively, bitterly argue - with other composers, often over the span of several centuries.

I love playing the Fillmore. I love the walk from the hotel and climbing up those old, iron stairs that lead to the stage. I imagine Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and all those other great bands climbing those same stairs.

Whenever I visit a city, I like to see what classical music concerts are on offer.

The first notes I still play when I start a sound check are classical. Those are my roots.

I can remember dancing around living room with my two sisters to the music of Paganini and Mozart. I can still remember my dad combing the newspaper, circling all the free concerts in town, and on the weekends, we would go as a family.

All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago.