52 Quotes by Gustavo Dudamel

With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community.

The challenge is not so much to change the sound. The challenge is to connect and to create something special.

It’s a physical challenge. It’s a spiritual challenge. I’m studying almost every day a different symphony, not returning to any one for a week.

Classical music in Venezuela is now something like a pop concert. You can see people screaming or crying because they don’t have a ticket.

I think the atmosphere of a Prom concert can change your life, in the best way. It’s so deep, the feeling you have there. The audience is so close, and there are so many of them, that you feel they are almost embracing you.

A friend gave me a CD of the ‘Pathetique’ Symphony as a Christmas present. I went home, and I put on the CD expecting to listen to Tchaikovsky. But it started ‘ta ta ta taaa.’ It was too long for me. I didn’t understand it at first, but then I fell in love, in love, in love.

When people feel that something really special is happening on the stage, things change.

I love to travel, but sometimes it’s nice to stay in one place.

I love to read different books on completely different subjects at the same time. I cannot focus on one. I read a few pages of literature, then I jump to philosophy and at the same time I’m reading biographies of Mahler.