Quotes from Gustavo Dudamel

Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra, I learn. They feel everything, they enjoy everything, they have amazing energy.

A friend gave me a CD of the 'Pathetique' Symphony as a Christmas present. I went home, and I put on the CD expecting to listen to Tchaikovsky. But it started 'ta ta ta taaa.' It was too long for me. I didn't understand it at first, but then I fell in love, in love, in love.

Going to a concert can sometimes be very difficult. It can be a long journey. There's the ticket prices. But when the music goes to the community - not the community coming to the concert - they say, 'Wow! I didn't know that this music was so amazing!'

In my imagination yes, I remember, when I was six years old, I was conducting all this concert in my house. But now it's real.

You have to believe that things will happen, you have to work and love what you're doing.

I want to work with the big orchestras. I want to have a big family.

Whenever I listen to a children's orchestra, I learn. They feel everything, they enjoy everything, they have amazing energy.

With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community.

For me, Venezuela is very important, not just because it's a place I go to conduct, but because my family is there - my wife, my parents and my musical family.

I love to read different books on completely different subjects at the same time. I cannot focus on one. I read a few pages of literature, then I jump to philosophy and at the same time I'm reading biographies of Mahler.

It's not that people don't like classical music. It's that they don't have the chance to understand and to experience it.