Top 35 Andris Nelsons Quotes

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

I think music can change your life.

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.

I think first thing and the most important thing, for me, is that Boston becomes my musical home, my musical family.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Some people will always gossip.

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.

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.

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

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.

Though involvement in music and the arts can’t cure all the ills of society, I do believe that the inspiration they provide has the potential to help us reflect, at times, on the better angels of our natures.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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