When you play a concerto with a small orchestra, you don't feel it is as important as Carnegie Hall. You try to work out all the little problems. Once that's all done, trust comes in.
You get more nervous in front of a lot of people. That's why, when you play a concerto, you play with a small orchestra, in some place where you don't feel that it is as important as Carnegie Hall.
It is good medicine to go to a concert hall and forget the harshness of what's going on. It can be a very positive thing.
When I came to the United States, I appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show as a 13-year-old, and I played a Mendelssohn Concerto, and it sounded like a talented 13-year-old with a lot of promise. But it did not sound like a finished product.
This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in five or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development.
I have a very simple philosophy. One has to separate the abilities from the disabilities. The fact I cannot walk, that I need crutches or a scooter or whatever it is, has nothing to do with my playing the violin.
Only one of my grandchildren is serious about a musical instrument. The others dabble in it.
The thing about talent is that it comes at different ages, sometimes at a very early age. That's when I find it to be the most challenging.
I'm now doing three things: concerts, conducting, and teaching, and they each support each other. I learn to see things from different perspectives and listen with different ears. The most important thing that you need to do is really listen.
If you put four different people on a podium conducting the same downbeat, you get four different sounds. It's a little mysterious and fascinating. There's so much you can do with motions and body movements besides giving accurate beats.
To bring a large audience to a piece of serious music and make it accessible does not mean reducing it in any way. And I've learned that if something is good, even if it is a little difficult, people will get that it is good.
I have just one fiddle. It works, and that's it. It has been an old friend.
I don't feel that the conductor has real power. The orchestra has the power, and every member of it knows instantaneously if you're just beating time.
I am humbled and honored to receive the Genesis Prize, recognizing not just my professional achievements and my desire to improve the world, but also my commitment to my Jewish identity, Jewish values, and Jewish culture.
As for minimalism, I don't care, don't care, don't care to repeat myself, repeat myself.
I'm a mushroom freak. I make a mushroom soup where I use maybe six or seven varieties, not just portobello and shiitake, but dried porcini and morels.
Competition can be the most nerve-racking experience. Some people just thrive on it.
There is no such thing as getting rid of nervousness.
I say to string players in small chamber orchestras, 'it's always easy to become a passenger on the journey in sound, just adding volume to the whole. But if you play in an individual way, it makes the difference between good and great sound in an orchestra.'
I've been lucky to conduct the very best orchestras in the world: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Berlin, the London Philharmonic.
