Orchestral Leadership Quotes

To have the privileged position of being the guy who is responsible for shaping the entire experience for an audience as opposed to being just one instrument in that orchestra, being an actor, it's all-encompassing.

Conducting has more to do with singing and breathing than with piano-playing.

I first heard Mahler's second symphony aged 11 in Liverpool, and it inspired me to become a conductor.

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

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 don't mind conducting the orchestra if I can play the violin.

When I started, I'd never had a conducting lesson in my life; I could just do it.

A good example of how it must have been is today's world of conducting, which is still utterly dominated by men, and the prejudice the few female conductors have to battle even today is astounding.

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

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.

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.

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.

I think conductors do spend too little time with their orchestras.

Any conductor who tells you that if he is approached for the directorship of the Chicago Symphony that he's not interested in it, you know perfectly well he's lying.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach. There are very few great conducting teachers, and most great conductors don't teach. Look at Valery Gergiev - what he does is not teachable. A lot of it is on-the-job training, what works and what doesn't work.

I sometimes feel it is to my disadvantage that I have not conducted the Cleveland Orchestra or the Boston or Chicago symphonies, but then I have had to sacrifice something in order to have enough time with my orchestras.

There was an opinion expressed in the newspapers that, after 20 years, maybe the Israel Philharmonic should consider asking me to leave. I thought they might have a point, so I asked my orchestra. They told me overwhelmingly that they wanted me to stay.

Conductors start getting good when everybody else retires.

Orchestras only need to be sworn at, and a German is consequently at an advantage with them, as English profanity, except in America, has not gone beyond a limited technology of perdition.

Conductors' careers are made for the most part with 'Romantic' music. 'Classic' music eliminates the conductor; we do not remember him in it.

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

One of my central maxims is how a major part of what a conductor tries to do is get a large group of people to agree on where "now" actually is.

I was different from most young conductors today.

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.

A conductor should guide rather than command.