A Quote by James Levine

I have a big problem with conductors who gesture a lot.

James Levine

Quote Topics

Big Big Problem Conductors Gesture Lot Problem

Quote Author

James Levine
American - Musician
Born: June 23, 1943

Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore.

Marvin Hamlisch

For one thing, I want gesture-any kind of gesture, all kinds of gesture-gentle or brutal, joyous or tragic; the gesture of space soaring, sinking, streaming, whirling; the gestures of light flowing or spurting through color. I see everything as possessing or possessed by gesture. I've often thought of my paintings as having an axis around which everything revolves.

Elaine de Kooning

Good conductors know when to push and when to lay back. I've known so many great conductors that I'm still doing what I can to learn the craft of this role.

Joshua Bell

Conductors make too much fuss about conductors! Humility and hard work are virtues. We're nothing without our musicians.

Simon Rattle

The big moment came when it was decided to paint...Just To Paint. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value- political, aesthetic, moral.

Harold Rosenberg

I was starting a group of musicians and we had a group of young composers in Finland back in the '70s, and the real conductors, the professional conductors at the time were not interested in our stuff.

Esa-Pekka Salonen

I actually started to think a lot about the difference between a creative gesture and a noncreative gesture. I decided that all gestures were creative. Because you always have to make a decision at some point.

Andrea Zittel

Success.. is all about being able to extend love to people... not in a big, capital letter sense but in the everyday. Little by little, task by task, gesture by gesture, word by word.

Ralph Fiennes

They gave me four weeks, and I asked if the first week could be just music with the two main conductors. So, the conductors came over to my home, and we worked in the music room, and I learned my two little songs.

Rue McClanahan

The biggest problem that the world has is nuclear weapons. Global warming is not our big problem. Our big problem is the maniacs that are controlling weaponry that has never been like it is today.

Donald Trump

The zooming wealth of the top 1 percent is a problem, but it's not nearly as big a problem as the tens of millions of Americans who have dropped out of high school or college. It's not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It's not nearly as big a problem as the nation's stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent.

David Brooks

There are two types of conductors. One is the good conductor who can do passionate music but also listen to the singers and do the orchestra. And then there are great conductors, who have their own opinion on the music, who are ruling everything - and not listening much to the singers, but the orchestra play amazingly.

Anna Netrebko

Having a big budget, I have no problem with spending the movie. It's fantastic to have a big budget. It gives a lot of time. It gives a lot of freedom. What's difficult is raising the money beforehand, and then when the investor wants the money back, afterwards.

Jaco Van Dormael

Light gesture and color of the key compliments of any photograph. Light and color are obvious, but it is just her that is the most important. There is gesture in everything. It's up to you to find a gesture that is most telling.