"The hardest part is the travelling and being far away from the ones you love (children, husband, parents, friends). The best part is being able to touch people with my music and seeing their happy faces after a wonderful concert. I really still believe that music makes people better!"

"The thing that captivates me about conducting is that we have the chance to paint with a huge brush. I also play the violin, which is a much smaller brush. It's music too, it's still me, but the kind of colors you can paint with an orchestra are incredible."

"Through music I crossed and left behind national boundaries. I’m not making a big political statement. But the reality is that if you give a child a ‘bigger stage’ (music), it’s a transformational experience."

"For me the String Quartet is the only ensemble in which sometimes you are right at the front of the texture and in the next bar you have to disappear completely. "

"It’s a tricky balance to respect the knowledge that we have now about the way they supposedly played in those times, and yet be able to express ourselves freely and respectfully."

"A young quartet is a chaotic mix of influences and aspirations which need to molded over time into a distinct and coherent voice. This process takes a great deal of time, sacrifice and patience, all of which are often in short supply in the most important years of a quartet's formation."

"The thing that attracts me to conducting is that we get the chance to paint with an enormous brush. I play the violin as well, that is a much smaller paint brush. It’s still music, it’s still me, but the kind of colors that you can paint with an orchestra is incredible."

"Every pianist starts with an sound in their head. It doesn’t come from the fingers or the shoulders… But what’s also true is that very few people actually have access to an individual sound. Those are the people whom you want hear over and over again."

"My work, my projects, my ideas—they swallow all the energy that I have left… I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but that’s my calling: to do something, to create something, that is greater than myself. That’s my life."