Top 44 Andris Nelsons Quotes

The excitement you can get in classical concert is as big, in a different sense, as you can get when you go to the ice hockey or baseball game.

I think touring is an important part of the life of an orchestra. Not only sharing with other audiences, but bringing that sense of family that you get back home. The sense of growing deeper into the music, of making it all sound like chamber music – that comes from being together on tour.

The two most important things is, one, the music in my life, and the family. It’s somehow connected because music is about human beings, about love, about hate, about everything that happens in life.

I feel too young in 2018 to take over the Berlin Philharmonic as the successor to Simon Rattle.

When the oldest surviving record company goes all in on a conductor, everyone notices.

It’s a dream to be its conductor. Sometimes I think, ‘My God, I can’t believe it.’ It’s a dream which came true.

Anyone who loves football can also be involved in music; the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

I’m sure the atmosphere at Tanglewood and the space there and nature – I think it absolutely fits Wagner‘s music.

We can understand each other with music without words – and that’s so important in these times when walls are built. In music, there are no walls.

People talk very much about, ‘What can we do with the orchestra in the 21st century?’ We should think about the 21st century, of course.

All composers who came after were influenced by Beethoven, even during his lifetime, both by his personality and by his music. He was a father figure for generations.

Music is a universal thing with no boundaries, whether you play inside or outside.

I know that Boston is one of the great centers of intellectual culture as well as sport. It’s one of the centers of America, with a great orchestra, great sports, great hospitals, and great universities.

If we want to share the message of the composers, to give good things back to humanity, we have to dig deep while we can.

I really think that the music is the food for our souls.

When I was younger, I wanted very much to play football.

I think ‘Rheingold’ has symbolic meaning of what happens in the world when you’re running after the Rhine gold, after the gold. It doesn’t end very well. It’s kind of a reminder of the values of life, and I think ‘The Ring,’ in a way, is kind of a prediction of Wagner of what would happen in the world.

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

Music goes beyond nationalities – it’s a language which you can understand in any country.

I want to take the great tradition of the orchestra within me, to take what the orchestra offers.

I’m thankful to Deutsche Grammophon, our partners – we are going to record the complete Shostakovich symphonies and hopefully some other things as well.

Wagner always opens you a second breath, and then you go on, and you are absolutely into his musical world, and you can’t stop, and you can listen for four hours, five hours, six hours, and then you are like in his mystical hands of his music. He’s such a great poet of music.

I’m very proud of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

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.

You could almost write an opera about the selection of music directors for orchestras. The intrigues are really interesting, and then, at the end, the results are completely unexpected.

It’s so important which musicians we choose for being in the orchestra.

All of us in the field must remain constantly vigilant and fight against all types of inappropriate and hurtful behavior and continue the essential work of creating a fair and safe work environment for all classical musicians.

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.

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.

As a trumpet player, I was playing Xenakis, Lindberg: very challenging, technical, atonal, and I enjoyed it.

AWe musicians can influence, and are responsible to influence, human hearts when we perform. We have to touch them.

Shostakovich was one of the great symphonists of all time, and maybe the last great symphonist.

On stage, I’m always nervous, but there is so much adrenalin, too. It’s strange because I have to turn my back on the audience, and my audience is the orchestra. I communicate my energy to them, and they communicate it to the audience behind me!

You don’t have to make a grand, exaggerated sound to sing opera.

Every week we have a concert, what we are performing is my favorite music in the world.

When you have a great car, you want people to see the car.

The Soviet Union had only one party. You couldn’t express yourself freely; you couldn’t admit belief in God. And yet this terrible regime understood that human beings have to express themselves, through music, even at a bad level. All kids studied music automatically, just as they did maths or languages or sport.

I think it’s very important to be part of the Boston society and the people who live in Boston.

It might be expensive to make music lessons available. But it’s even more costly to deal with human beings who have half their intellect and spirit left undeveloped.

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

You must take care of your family, respect the music, and work intensely. Health and family come first, and then you can make much better music.

For one person, Haydn is most exciting. Or Bach is the most exciting. For another, it’s Carter or Strauss. For me – and for any musician – all of the music is exciting. And if you don’t approach it with excitement, we can’t be musicians.

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.

I believe we have a physical body and a soul. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, whether or not you believe in God. I think people believe that there is a soul and a body.