Conductor Quotes

• I, uh...I have a television, so I'm going to spend some time here to tell you some things. [To orchestra conductor:] And, and...and sir, you're doing a great job, but you're so quick with that stick, so why don't you sit. 'Cause I may never be here again.'

  

  Julia Roberts
  • Time
  • Great
  • Why

• A conductor, in giving a faithful reproduction and exact translation of the written notes, can re-create the thought and emotion of an unknown person-the composer-which can sometimes be a transfiguring experience.

  

  Charles Munch
  • Experience
  • Giving
  • Unknown

• We were not for underestimating magic - a life-conductor like the sap between the tree-stem and the bark. We know that it keeps dullness out of religion and poetry. It is probable that without it we might die.

  

  Freya Stark
  • Life
  • Die
  • Poetry

• We are aware that the conductor is not really making the music, it is making him -- if he is relaxed, open and attuned, then the invisible will take possession of him; through him, it will reach us.

  

  Peter Brook
  • Music
  • Possession
  • Invisible

• The conductor's stand is not a continent of power, but rather an island of solitude.

  

  Riccardo Muti
  • Islands
  • Conductor

• If a train doesn’t stop at your station, it’s simply because it’s not your train. Don’t try to flag down the conductor and convince them to stop there, even if their own map says that they should just keep going. You may not realize it, but there’s another train trying to come toward you, unable to get into your station because a train that doesn’t even belong there is being delayed there by your intensity.

  

  Marianne Williamson
  • Trying
  • May
  • Stop

• I'm a conductor of revivals. The only minister in the whole package. Little Richard, the evangelist.

  

  Little Richard
  • Minister
  • Evangelist
  • Revivals

• I have had much pleasure in working with Orphei Drängar during my time as chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and I consider OD to be one of the most brilliant men´s choirs in the world. The singers are highly professional and their repertoire is of a very wide range, but then they have been trained for years by Eric Ericson, the world´s leading choir conductor. I also admire the strength and the beauty of their voices. OD is an extraordinary powerful choir!

  

  Neeme Jarvi
  • World
  • Men
  • Powerful

• The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.

  

  Benjamin Zander
  • Ability
  • Orchestra
  • Conductor

• Somehow, conductor as this superhuman conduit between the masters and the masterpieces and the immortals.

  

  Esa-Pekka Salonen
  • Masters
  • Masterpiece
  • Superhuman

• I study the Bible constantly. I teach the Bible. You know, I'm a Bible conductor, and I have a lot of people studies. But also, I see how small things really help people to get over humps in their life. Gives them direction.

  

  George Benson
  • People
  • Life
  • Help

• The very first time I was on a car in Atlanta, I saw the conductor - all conductors are white - ask a Negro woman to get up and take a seat farther back in order to make a place for a white man. I have also seen white men requested to leave the Negro section of the car.

  

  Ray Stannard Baker
  • Place
  • Atlanta
  • Section

• There was this kind of mildly annoying mythology about conductor Like biker should riding a Harley-Davidson on an LP cover, and wearing a sort of a leather suit.

  

  Esa-Pekka Salonen
  • Annoying
  • Mythology
  • Harley

• What is a career, actually? Nobody can destroy my career. Only I can destroy my career, if I am a bad conductor. I've gone to lesser known orchestras in Scotland and Sweden, Detroit, but I have enjoyed the places I've been, and had success. I like the close community relations, and to solve problems.

  

  Neeme Jarvi
  • Community
  • Problem
  • Careers

• You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.

  

  Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Light
  • Conductor
  • Luminous

• A conductor has to know how to translate music into a communicative force that makes the listener want to hear what he has to say.

  

  Isaac Stern
  • Music
  • Translate
  • Conductor

• Normally classical music is set up so you have professionals on a stage and a bunch of audience - it's us versus them. You spend your entire time as an audience member looking at the back of the conductor so you're already aware of a certain kind of hierarchy when you are there: there are people who can do it, who are on stage, and you aren't on stage so you can't do it. There's also a conductor who is telling the people who are onstage exactly what to do and when to do it and so you know that person is more important than the people on stage.

  

  David Lang
  • People
  • Important
  • Audience

• I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff.

  

  Esa-Pekka Salonen
  • Real
  • Musician
  • Interested

• A conductor's happiness does not come from only his own story and his joy of the music. The joy is about enabling other people's stories to be heard at the same time.

  

  Itay Talgam
  • Happiness
  • Stories
  • Conductor

• Conducting, I tried it once off the cuff, and quickly realized there were subtle aspects that I was missing. There is a lot more to it that I was able to grasp simply by watching conductors.

  

  Carter Burwell
  • Missing
  • Able
  • Aspect

• As the bus slowed down at the crowded bus stop, the Pakistani bus conductor leaned from the platform and called out, "Six only!" The bus stopped. He counted on six passengers, rang the bell, and then, as the bus moved off, called to those left behind: "So sorry, plenty of room in my heart - but the bus is full." He left behind a row of smiling faces. It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it.

  

  Edwin Francis Gay
  • My Heart
  • Smiling
  • Passengers

• So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.

  

  Ruggiero Ricci
  • Difficult
  • Able
  • Rhythm

• A conductor should guide rather than command.

  

  Riccardo Muti
  • Should
  • Command
  • Conductor

• Direction is the most invisible part of the theatrical art. It's not like the conductor in the symphony orchestra performance because he's standing in front of you waiving his arms. You now what he's doing. You don't know what the director is doing unless you know a lot about theater and even then you can only deduce it. You know it when you go to rehearsal. You really know it when they are rehearsing something of yours. I learned more in the rehearsals for The Letter than I have ever dreamed of know in the theater as a critic. If it doesn't make me a better critic, I'm an idiot.

  

  Terry Teachout
  • Art
  • Critics
  • Idiot

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