Curtis Mayfield Quotes

The New York Philharmonic is a tremendous opportunity, a great orchestra.

Pardon me for loitering in front of an orchestra.

The symphonies are the things that, as a soloist, I've not gotten to play. I used to travel the world playing concertos, and then I would sit and listen to the symphony.

When I was 4 or 5, I attended my father's concerts. He very often played Strauss waltzes as encores and I saw something happening with the audience.

I absolutely love the Philharmonic. I also love rock guitar.

I did a concert... in September with the Berlin Philharmonic... They're great musicians, and there's always something to learn from them.

I'm lucky enough to be doing my dream job, but my second dream job would be to be a concert pianist.

Through the years I've found that I prefer live playing to recording. I still do lots of recording - but I treasure the live shows.

A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people.

The way it works: The orchestra plays a few selections of its own and I terminate the first part of the programme on piano, usually with a movement from a Mozart concerto.

I do radio gigs, three-minute spots, solo shows, so I still get plenty of practice at the sniper attack - me at a piano or with a guitar, having to win people over fast.

To play with a symphony today is just fabulous.

At the end of the day, if you're an actor, you want to act. And it's not something you can do in the living room alone. If you're a painter, you can paint at home. If you write music, you can write on your own.

When I played my first concert with an orchestra, I was eight years old in Berlin.

It's great to play live. I love it and appreciate it more than I did in the early days. It's a central part of being in A-ha.

It's always a pleasure to perform in MP.

To me, there is nothing like the excitement and unique experience of a live orchestra playing.

There is one live track on the album, 'Einsamaller,' and that had a conductor - Eyvind Kang.

Western classical music is participative. Look at the number of people who are involved in a symphony.

When we started the band, it was a classical group.

I've been playing live since I was in sixth grade.

You could almost write an opera about the selection of music directors for orchestras. The intrigues are really interesting, and then, at the end, the results are completely unexpected.

When the oldest surviving record company goes all in on a conductor, everyone notices.

I love doing things on stage with other people.

I've played the Royal Albert Hall to 8,500 people, and there wasn't a nerve in my body.