I like to create the music I hear in my interior. As a conductor, you have the ability to squeeze the sounds and interpretation you asked for from 50 to 80 people.
I kind of alternate between conducting and playing and kind of juggling those things, but I don't use a baton.
Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.
A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.
When I got to Broadway, I conducted five Broadway shows.
I grew up playing in youth orchestras, so they were my most treasured memories, so to be in front of an orchestra playing my own material would be incredible.
I've been lucky to conduct the very best orchestras in the world: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Berlin, the London Philharmonic.
The real art of conducting consists in transitions.
I feel too young in 2018 to take over the Berlin Philharmonic as the successor to Simon Rattle.
I think if I wasn't a musician, I would be a high-school band director or orchestra director. I like working with large groups of musicians and bringing out the dynamics and accomplishing something as a team.
