Andris Nelsons Quotes
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As a trumpet player, I was playing Xenakis, Lindberg: very challenging, technical, atonal, and I enjoyed it.
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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.
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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!
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As for my relationship to Beethoven, I admire people who can say what they really think. It's as though he's saying, 'That's how I feel about the world, and I don't care what people may say.' His music is pure and honest. Beethoven never pretends to be anybody else.
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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.
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Anyone who loves football can also be involved in music; the two aren't mutually exclusive.
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I'm sure the atmosphere at Tanglewood and the space there and nature - I think it absolutely fits Wagner's music.
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Music goes beyond nationalities - it's a language which you can understand in any country.
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You don't have to make a grand, exaggerated sound to sing opera.
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Music is something you can't really put in terms like in a sport, like running or football - that you win if you score more. In music, there's nothing like that.
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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.
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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.
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Music is a universal thing with no boundaries, whether you play inside or outside.
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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.
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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.
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I see, in this life, the hardship many suffer. I see the joy that music can give. How we deal with all this is part of a preparation for the next life.
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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.
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For me, the main goal is loving music and experiencing the great music-making with the orchestra, which is the great reason why I conduct, and that is the main goal.
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I think music can change your life.
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I really think that the music is the food for our souls.
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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.
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I simply love Wagner's music. That actually started very early. He was the first composer I was exposed very much to because my parents introduced me to Wagner's music very early.
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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.
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Shostakovich was one of the great symphonists of all time, and maybe the last great symphonist.