I would like to be a terrorist for music education - to make a complete reform, all over the world.

I cannot be music director at La Scala and at Staatsoper. This would be unfair to one of the two institutions.

I love conducting. What I'm tired of is music administration. I don't want that. I just want to make music.

US presidents can make all the commitments and declarations they want until they are blue in the face, in the Muslim world they will always be perceived as partisan.

I know so many Irish musicians. They're all over, because there has been so much emigration from Ireland. Like the Jews.

I'm one of the ones who believed the Iraq War was a complete mistake from the very beginning.