I know the musical world as well as I know the comedy world.
Every time the mainstream media talk about progressive rock, they wheel out a clip of Rick Wakeman in a cape. For me, it's one of the most ambitious forms of music. The problem is that when it doesn't work, you end up with Emerson, Lake and Palmer doing symphonies with 60-piece orchestras and revolving pianos, which I think is ridiculous as well.
Orchestras are like people. They're the sonic embodiment of their community.
While there used to be one or two Pops orchestras, now there are all kinds of European orchestras that suddenly look upon this as a golden wand that can enable them to make money recording this music.
There are a few great orchestras in the world, thank goodness. Although some people do put them in ranking order, it's not like a snooker match. Each orchestra has different things to offer.
I like musicals and I love music.
I'm an opera lover.
I've seen whales calving in the waters off Maui, and I've watched my children being born. But music is the most beautiful thing of all.
Women play cellos and violins in symphony orchestras. They're playing Beethoven and Bach. What do you mean they can't play rock and roll?
In Hamburg, there are three major orchestras, an opera house, and one of the great concert-hall acoustics in Europe at the Laeiszhalle, in a town a fifth the size of London. And that's not unusual. In Germany, there are dozens of towns with two or three orchestras. The connection with music goes very, very deep.
This is no condemnation of Chuck Berry, who I greatly admire. But Chuck Berry's music will not translate as well to orchestration because of its very three-chord rock 'n' roll nature. It is the music of the artists that are more pretentious, pompous or closer to the kind of big dramatic stylings that orchestras are good with.
The problem is, when you're working with orchestras, you only get the orchestra for about two hours before the performance to pull it all together, and that doesn't sound like a real collaboration.
It is very gratifying to see the music from 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy find a new life on the concert stage as it is performed by different orchestras and choruses throughout the world.
I love hip-hop; I love Sleigh Bells. I also love classical music and musical theater.
I absolutely insist upon adequate rehearsal time - particularly for the pieces that orchestras know best. Because there, the tendency is not to take them apart - rediscover them - and you must.
For many years, the government of Canada has massively supported orchestras and the arts in general.
People say that having three orchestras is a crazy life, but it's better because you have three families. I want to have my own kids very soon. In future, I still want to conduct a lot, but less, to be with my family.
The Chicago Symphony is considered the greatest orchestra in the world.
It is very significant – their songs about the oppressed people…. A race who can sing these songs like that will cause trouble one of these days.
1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
I think the opera is one of the great cultural jewels of Los Angeles.
Next year I'm going to be a guesting soloist with orchestras all over Europe, to start off with.
There are three orchestras in Munich, all world-quality, in a city of one million. Yet every hall is full.
I want to work with the big orchestras. I want to have a big family.
With American orchestras, in particular, because they play in such huge halls, getting a true pianissimo is very hard.
I think the preservation of orchestras and what they do is worth expending all the ways there are to reach out to people who might not otherwise go.
