Quotes About Conducting

I think that children that are acting are always pretty savvy anyway because you're conducting yourself around adults a lot of the time, aren't you? But there is this worry now that children just want to be famous.

There's a thing about film composing and conducting in my family.

I was different from most young conductors today.

Composers are not all good conductors.

Young conductors who are confident enough, they very often have success.

In my mid-twenties, I was with a conducting career, but I had never been to university and I wanted to. There were things I wanted to study in depth. I also wanted to see if I could survive without music.

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.

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 is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

Why would you want to stand there waving a stick when you could be playing an instrument?

Well, the reports are correct that we're conducting very robust military operations on the Afghan side of the border in areas where we think al-Qaida is operating and Taliban remnants are.

Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore.

Never look encouragingly at the brass, except with a brief glance to give an important cue.

But shall he argue, indeed, and then not take pains to avoid conducting himself recklessly and at haphazard in an argument? And if he does not, how will he any longer be the sort of man we think he is? (...) Let them show that he will be able, and all these speculations become mere superfluity, they were absurd and inconsistent with our preconception of the good man.

Forget the damned investigation. I am beginning to think that if the matter were put to the test, I would finish a poor second to your interest in conducting investigations.

In symphonic music, when you are conducting, you do the same thing. You are feeling the whole orchestra, thinking ahead so you can prepare for a change.

I never like to conduct, quite honestly, because you have to be a bit of a dictator and it's exhausting.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach.

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 don't think that anybody should be ruling in or ruling out anything while we are conducting diplomacy.

So many times, I've seen conductors that, every time they have a thought, they stop the orchestra and say it, and I can see the orchestra rolling their eyes and saying, 'Oh, God, he stopped again.' So there's a technique to rehearsing.

People still call me the eternal amateur. After all, professionals are supposed to be able to conduct everything. But I can't unless I feel some connection inside. Conducting is not an end in itself for me.

A balanced and skillful approach to life, taking care to avoid extremes, becomes a very important factor in conducting one's everyday existence.

On the other hand, when I give it closer thought, I realize I'm not enough of a dictator to conduct an orchestra because it requires a pretty awful person. When you read these biographies of famous conductors, they are all awful people who fail in their private relationships.