My father was - actually was an Episcopal priest as a young man. Became a psychotherapist, a psychologist. My mother is Jewish, so I grew up in a mixed background. But the common denominator was certainly music, and that was sort of emphasized in my household as music being sort of the spiritual force.

The orchestra confides in me about their music director or their conductor, and I've never seen a conductor that's been liked by everyone.

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.

My whole life, I've been watching conductors. I was 7 the first time I played with a conductor. Seeing the ones that do it well, it's an amazing thing.

In concertos, I stand up, and I conduct with the bow when I'm not playing. During symphonies, I sit, but sometimes I stop playing to conduct. Being seated in a section allows me to feel more like we're playing chamber music, which is how I like to approach it.

There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a conductor say, 'Play softer,' as they're waving their hands in huge gestures.

You're really looking for the truth of what the piece is about. And that's going to be different for different people.

A conductor can do wild things which can feel forced, but if you're directing from within the orchestra, you can't do that, things have to feel natural.

I've been touring for 25 years. I'm used to it, so I love it. Although I feel the tug of home, as I have three little kids, I don't suffer like some artists who constantly complain about how much they hate traveling.

I'm not a businessman, so I don't know how to solve the problems of the recording industry.

For some reason I can't explain, artist and musicians tend to look younger than our age. Being in music, you need this youthful sense of discovery and wonder for what you're doing and keep your imagination open. That's a youthful way of looking at life and I think that reflects in how you age.

I'm in a position where, theoretically, I could play the same ten concertos and make a very good living bouncing around playing Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky and Barber, but I really think artists should keep pushing limits and trying new things.

When you hear extraneous noise, they are bored in some way, so it makes me upset. Even coughing, I find, is passive-aggressive, usually.

In 1987, I had no idea who Steven Isserlis was. We met at the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. It was originally just an Italian summer festival, but for the past 14 years, there's also been a spring festival in America.

Music - you need the give and take from the audience, the feeling of attention. It's not about me: it's about the music itself.

In art and music, particularly in the 20th century, there was a big period there where for something to be called profound you had to not be able to understand it.

I like blackjack. I like the psychology of poker.

Being a director or a conductor is a balance of many things. And to do it right is a very difficult tightrope to walk. I've come to the conclusion that there's really no way to be one hundred percent popular as conductor.

We live in the least ugly time in history.

I think music should be the basis of an education, not just something you do once a week.

Criticism is always hard to take - we musicians are sensitive. It's always hard when someone says something negative - but you try to learn to just let it roll off and not worry about it.

When I hear people clapping at the wrong times, I think that's great. We have got a listener that's not used to going to - we have got a new listener.

As my career has gone on, I guess I've become more well known. I'm playing to fuller halls in general, which is a nice feeling. When you're doing that, you're going to have a certain number of people who are not just the hardcore classical fanatics, and this makes me very happy.

At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off.

When you play for ticket-holders, you are already validated. I have no sense that I need to be accepted. I'm already accepted.

The man on the street, he knows who Beethoven is, he knows who Mozart is.

I write arrangements. I'm sort of a wannabe composer.

I grew up in a musical family, but nobody was a professional musician.

I was lucky enough to have parents who started me on music very early, but most kids don't get that kind of exposure.

I like working with kids because I enjoy seeing the looks on their faces and, it's kind of selfish, I want a future audience.

I mean, the great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them.

The violin sings.

You only live once, so I try to say yes to everything.

I use Facebook quite a lot to keep up with my friends, although I had to delete 'Words With Friends' from my phone because it was wasting too much of my time.

I want to do everything. That's my problem.

The best way to refine an interpretation is by getting out and performing.

Beethoven's symphonies are not 'relaxing.' They are the most exciting things that have ever been created by a human being.

I'm having a blast being the music director at the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. It certainly is challenging for me, but I love challenges.

Anyone who knows classical music and loves classical music has heard the Beethoven Seventh hundreds of times probably in their life.

I'm happy if my music is being downloaded, whether it's legally or illegally.

Obviously, I want it to be legally downloaded, and I myself have spent a fortune on iTunes because, for me, that's the easiest way to get music.

Art and music is part of what it means to be a human being. And if you're neglecting that, you're basically ignoring a huge side of the brain and a huge side of what it means to be human.

I have visited schools that have music programs and those that don't. I see the way the kids act with each other.

Music teaches people to work together, which is maybe one of the most important skills.

It's endless, the amount of things that music touches on that can help kids grow that are very, very practical.

For me, I'm sort of a wanna-be composer, and I love being involved with the arrangements.

Stradivarius, in particular, was the most amazing craftsman and one of the great artists and scientists that ever lived because he figured out something with the sound and the science of acoustics that we still don't understand it completely.

The beauty of a Stradivarius is that you can play in Carnegie Hall without any amplification, and it has this - the sound has, inside it, has something that projects, and it has multifaceted sound, something that kind of gets lost when you use amplification anyway.

We like to categorize things into showy things and deep things, you know, and things that are high music - important music - and shallow music. And I think that's dangerous, because there's often a mix of both.

People wrote the most beautiful things during the ugliest times.