I like to record. It's very intense.

A concert is my experimentation time. I practice playing something several different ways, but in a concert, inevitably I get more ideas onstage, in that combination of focus and adrenaline, than I could ever get in the practice room.

Touring is a more varied and interesting existence than I would have imagined.

I get to work with a lot of great musicians - many I wouldn't have expected to work with - and see how they form their lives around their music and how they approach it.

When I was younger, I felt more like a student working with a mentor when I worked with the conductor, but now it feels more like equals.

For me, the conductor is a person who interprets along with me, and we interpret things together.

I learn a lot in interviews, I learn about how careers differ.

Writing is a good creative outlet... it's a supplement to my music.

Sometimes a person comes into an audience after a rough day, and they want to hear something they know.

Sometimes I like practicing, sometimes I don't. But I like the result... I hardly ever get discouraged. Maybe right when it's very hard to get something done correctly, but then the idea flashes through of how to fix it. And I get encouraged. And other ideas flow.

If my career doesn't work out as a violinist, I want to become an archaeologist. I've read about paleontology, too - that's dinosaur bones - but I thought it would be more interesting to do archaeology.

I guess I just like the idea of digging things up. Although I used to be scared of human skeletons.

Music can inspire immediate emotional reactions, even if the only person who hears it is the person creating it.

That word 'prodigy' has such a derogatory implication. It is used to describe people who are forced to play a lot of concerts very early, people whose audience comes because of their youth, people who are exploited. None of the above really applied to me.

Most kids are very seriously interested in something - friends, math, shopping, sports. For me it happened to be music and the violin. I had the chance to pursue it without having it get in the way of my life.

I try to prioritize a certain amount of quiet work every day.

I grew up not watching TV and I enjoy TV but it kind of takes my brain away from me.

I enjoy reading and thinking, and it's hard to make that space as an artist.

My teacher was still practicing Bach until his death at 89. I have no doubt that if I live that long, I'll be doing the same thing.

I go a lot to Korea and Japan.

I've been to New Zealand several times.

For vacation, I like going to places I've never been before. I've gone to some remote places, like the Arctic Circle.

I like when things happen very quickly, just flash in and flash out. It keeps things interesting.

Growing up as a classical musician, you're taught a lot about outreach and about how people aren't being taught music in school. But you don't have to study music to like it. And a lot of the music that people like - be it jazz or rock or opera - is stuff they haven't studied.

Taking on music that's not played very much is a contribution I can give. There's so much I feel that needs more attention.

Whenever I work with people who are nonclassical artists, I kind of get a kick in the pants. I think, 'How can I apply what I do to their music?'

I'm more creative the more rules I have - note values, tempos, dynamic markings. Somehow, I find that really inspiring.

In the performance sense, I find that interpretation is improvisatory in nature. You can go anywhere with an interpretation on any given day.

When I started my recording career, I hoped that someday the Grammy committee would notice something.

With a Grammy, if you're releasing your record with a major label, you have a chance with any record. You also have a very long shot with every record.

One challenge, if you do a website, a Youtube channel, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Ping, other things like that, is you don't have time to be an artist. As a performer, you need to practice.

Deutsche Grammophon really has a grasp of the classical repertoire.

I grew up in Baltimore.

When you have a teacher who is part of a tradition, the other people in that tradition are such stars. You just look at them like pop stars.

The nice thing about the violin repertoire is that it's small enough that you can plan on learning everything at some point - whereas the piano repertoire is so enormous it wouldn't be possible unless you're a learning machine.

My career direction has probably been guided as much by curiosity and my personality as by my early influences.

I have a lot of interests. I daydreamed about various career options growing up; the one I'm in is the first one that worked out, and I love it, so I feel very lucky.

As a professional, you pick up ideas from your colleagues and the orchestras you work with, while coming up with mutual interpretations in very short periods of time.

I try to do a lot of direct contact with the audience, because the audience is part of the concert, too, as much as anyone on stage, and it's a shame not to get to meet them if you get the chance.

One of the most rewarding things is meeting someone after a concert who has never been to a concert before. It is incredibly rewarding when they say, 'This is my first classical concert.' It is really exciting for everyone.

I have always enjoyed literature classes, and I took a fiction workshop for writing and analyzing at Curtis... I don't know if would do it professionally, but it's nice to have the balance with the music.

Musicians are also interpretive artists and we are just as creative as painters and writers. We interpret in a way that expresses ourselves.

I am not trying to be cooler or change my image or get into pop music.

If you start censoring what you're interested in for the audience, you don't give the audience enough credit.

The audience will find the artist who matches their interests. If you're not being true to yourself, your audience can't find you, because there's a wall up between who you are and who they're seeing.

I don't think there's such a difference between older and newer music as there is between one composer and another.

Sometimes, I'm not sure why I wind up doing some of the things I do.

You couldn't be performing if it weren't for the audience. I appreciate them being there. So why not applaud them? They took time out of their schedule to show up and sit in the concert hall and be part of the experience.

It's fine with me if people want to applaud between movements of a concerto. It doesn't bother me - it's part of performance experience.

I always feel I have a long way to go in my playing and my music.