Andris Nelsons Quotes

Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year and then make it sound a little bit better, and you get a little band together, and then you get a few jobs. You take four guys that sound half bad, but if they're 25 percent each, they can give 100 percent, you know?

When I got my band in 1983, I knew what I had to do. If I'm going to have a big band, they're going to have to sound equally as good as what I'm used to hearing.

Well I look for an accompanist that does his work well, this to begin.

We would play, then they would play a set, then we would jam on the last song.

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

An orchestra full of stars can be a disaster.

I know what my job is: I write the songs, I sing them, I play them on the piano.

From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good.

Orchestras have become used to the emphasis on the separation of layers, of the ultimate precision and clarity.

Any musician in any band - for a really good band - you know your part in the band.

Catch Harry Belafonte. He's got a helluva rhythm section.And so have the Pointer Sisters. And that little guy with Sammy Clayton. He plays the whole show with 40 members.

There's a category for me. I like to be referred to as a good singer of good songs in good taste.

I love to play guitar. I've been writing my own songs on the axe since I was nine years old. I suck at leads.

Yes, I love to play drums and bass and guitar and piano. Those are the main instruments I play. That is it.

I know some of those 'Glee' people, and they can really sing! I wish we could hear them live, because I know some of them and they can really sing like nobody's business.

A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people.

I play the piano a lot at home. I write songs on the piano and guitar. I would like to actually play piano on stage. I don't think I'll get the chance for a while.

I'm a real band guy, you know? I'm really good at certain things, and the band stuff is one of them.

Conductors are performers.

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.

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 was a schooled musician. When I made 'Blue Velvet', I told everyone what to do. I was an arranger. I learned music in school I told the band to play this. I told the guitar to do that.

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.

People have said I played some pretty amazing gigs in the seventies, but in all honesty, I probably played one good show in three.

How could I? I only know two tunes. One of them is Yankee Doodle. The other isn't.