Joshua Bell Quotes

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.

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.

Conducting is a strange thing to teach.

I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music.

Through conducting, you express through your arms, through your face and even the body, what you want to tell, so the musicians of the orchestra understand.

Let me say that I've never thought to conduct because the conductor has to think to the music before the orchestra. And the orchestra comes later. For me, it's terrible.

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.

He was making all kinds of sounds apparently with his mouth, and shaking his head and I thought, gosh, is he trying to stop the orchestra? Is it all wrong? It was just unbelievable.

It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine.

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.

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

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.

I admire Tom Ades: he's a brilliant conductor, and he gets just the right hard, brilliant sound from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Russian music.

I like to create the music I hear in my interior. As a conductor, you have the ability to squeeze the sounds and interpretation you asked for from 50 to 80 people.

There's nothing worse than working with an orchestra who looks down on working with a conductor who doesn't want to conduct for you. You need to be with an orchestra that can follow you and respect you.

You have a great result if the orchestra trusts the conductor, and the conductor trusts the orchestra.

Conducting is about communication. You don't play any notes, but you communicate with the musicians.

Bernstein was everywhere - Vienna, London - and everyone admired him. Of course he loved Boston, and he did so many great things at Tanglewood. He was the best example of what a conductor should be.

The conductor is a peculiar person. He turns his back on his friends in the audience, shakes a stick at his players in the orchestra, and then wonders why nobody loves him.

Today, conducting is a question of ego: a lot of people believe they are actually playing the music.

The whole duty of a conductor is comprised in his ability to indicate the right tempo.

Conducting" is when you draw "designs" in the nowhere-with a stick, or with your hands-which are interpreted as "instructional messages" by guys wearing bow ties who wish they were fishing.

One of the most important elements in teaching, conducting, and performing, all three, is listening.

If you ever go to a music session, you'll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they're reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

I've always been accused of moving around too much when I play concertos. Sometimes, conductors ask me which of us is leading.