One of the principal differences between the work that I have done at other places, either as a guest conductor or as a music director, and that of St. Louis is that I feel the biggest potential we have here is that we play the music with the type of emotional understanding that few other orchestras match. So while we're trying to come as close to technical perfection as human beings can, what we're really working on is trying to get the raison d'etre , the reason for being, of that music.

David Robertson