Joshua Bell Quotes

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.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach.

Good conductors know when to push and when to lay back. I've known so many great conductors that I'm still doing what I can to learn the craft of this role.

Conducting is way over my head.

One of the most important elements in teaching, conducting, and performing, all three, is listening.

Basically speaking, conducting is quite a healthy profession.

I kind of alternate between conducting and playing and kind of juggling those things, but I don't use a baton.

I prefer it when the conductor follows me. It is more difficult to work with a conductor who does not listen - even if I understand that sometimes it makes sense when one person is ruling everything. But for bel canto, I have to have a conductor who listens and supports me.

Good conductors know when to let an orchestra lead itself. Ninety percent of what a conductor does comes in the rehearsal - the vision, the structure, the architecture.

Conductors are performers.

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

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

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.

The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor. This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.

I love conducting. What I'm tired of is music administration. I don't want that. I just want to make music.

I have a big problem with conductors who gesture a lot.

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.

So many times, I've seen conductors that, every time they have a thought, they stop the orchestra and say it, and I can see the orchestra rolling their eyes and saying, 'Oh, God, he stopped again.' So there's a technique to rehearsing.

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.

There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people that really are not centrally concerned only with music, the traditional things.

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 been very exciting for me to start directing and conducting, exploring the symphonic repertoire, which I've always loved.

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.