After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument.
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.
But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.
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.
Cello is my first instrument, then piano, drums, bass, violin, recorder, saxophone, but I'd never play them live!
It has to be able to play at the maximum expression and communication in every style, and the only way you can do that is - like Verdi said - working with a file, every day, little by little, until the orchestra's collective qualities emerge.
I'm very proud of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
It feels like my job is to support people. I support great artists. When I worked with a symphony, I sat in the third chair, not the first chair.
So, you can set up an orchestra down this end of the railway station playing one particular area, and simultaneously at the other end something completely different going on. And in the middle they meet, or not, depending.
When I played my first concert with an orchestra, I was eight years old in Berlin.
I am a trombone player, and that was my first instrument.
Even if I was playing the keyboard in an orchestra, or a radio jockey playing music at an FM station, I would have been the happiest person. So, for me, all this... being a music composer and getting appreciated for my craft... it is a bonus. It is God's gift.
No, but a cello is the perfect string bass for an accordion. Works with it beautifully.
You find Jews, Irish, and Italians in every orchestra.
Never let the horns and woodwinds out of your sight; if you can hear them at all, they are too loud.
If the orchestra's not enjoying itself, the concerto will not succeed, with the players confined to using half an inch of bow.
With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.
When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.
In western classical music with an orchestra, you focus the orchestra on melodies and harmony. In African music, the biggest focus is on rhythms and counter-rhythms - the complexity of rhythms.
From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good.
Music - opera particularly - is a process which is endurable or successful only if it is achieved by people who love to collaborate.
I was always jealous of my violinist friends and cellist friends who traveled with their instruments.
Before I became an actress, I was a cellist. I've been playing since I was 14, was in a lot of bands, and acting was more of a hobby.
It's just that, when the orchestra look at me, I want them to see a completely involved person who reflects what we rehearsed, and whose function is to make it possible for them to do it.
My mom was an opera singer. She did all the classical music, and I heard it. I know every opera. I know every classical piece of music.
