While our country has made great strides in breaking down the barriers which for so long denied equal opportunity to all Americans, we are not yet the beautiful symphony of brotherhood of Dr. King's dream.
We did experiments with the Boston Symphony for many years where we measured the angles of incidence of sound arriving at the ears of the audience, then took the measurements back to MIT and analyzed them.
A Beethoven symphony should be rehearsed like chamber music, only for a lot more people.
Music is such an important part of society, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra offers such great quality, and we just want to share it.
I'm very proud of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Birmingham did a truly remarkable thing in building Symphony Hall, which is the finest concert hall in the U.K. and one of the best in the world. The city has supported music without putting on the brakes.
The Boston Symphony is one of the best orchestras in the world and has such a great tradition - which I want to cherish, of course, and to learn from and to continue and to add whatever I can add.
When you play in smaller places with a smaller symphony, sometimes there's a difference in quality. Sometimes it's murderous. Sometimes it's real torture. Other times, you get a wonderful surprise. But there's never a dull moment.
It's Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony I'm really looking forward to. Simon Rattle does it perfectly: he understands its primal rhythmic life force, and he and the wonderful Berliners make it a sheer riot of orchestral colour.
When you listen to a symphony orchestra, and the basses don't - there's no bass part, there's not that much depth. That's why I'm attracted to the instrument, the bass. It brings depth. It's like playing in a rainforest.
