Top 222 Conductor Quotes & Sayings

New York for a long time was a kind of conductor's graveyard.

The conductor has the advantage of not seeing the audience.

Before Liszt, a conductor was someone who just facilitated the performance, who would keep people together or beat the time, indicate the entries. After Liszt, that was no longer the case; a conductor was someone who shaped the music in an intense musical way, who played the orchestra as an instrument.

I was the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad.

I urge pupils when studying a work and in order to master its most important aspic, the rhythmic structure, or the ordering of the time process, to do just what a conductor does with the score: to place music on the desk and to conduct the work from beginning to end as if it were played by someone else, an imaginary pianist with the conductor trying to impress him with his will, his tempo first of all, plus all the details of his performance.

A man gets on a train with his little boy, and gives the conductor only one ticket. 'How old's your kid?' the conductor says, and the father says, 'He's four years old.' 'He looks at least twelve to me,' says the conductor. And the father says, 'Can I help it if he worries?

A conductor should guide rather than command.

A good conductor ought to be a good chauffeur; the qualities that make the one also make the other. They are concentration, an incessant control of attention, and presence of mind; the conductor only has to add a little sense of music.

The whole duty of a conductor is comprised in his ability to indicate the right tempo.

I'm a conductor of revivals. The only minister in the whole package. Little Richard, the evangelist.

When the oldest surviving record company goes all in on a conductor, everyone notices.

I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music.

Acting is just playing the violin in an orchestra. Directing is being the conductor.

The awful thing about a conductor becoming geriatric is that you seem to become more desirable, not less.

Monet was like a conductor. He painted with quite a straight arm and used bold strokes.

You have a great result if the orchestra trusts the conductor, and the conductor trusts the orchestra.

I always imagined that to bring an orchestra to play together is not enough for a conductor.

All the conductor has to do is stand back and try not to get in the way. Mozart is doing all the work.

A conductor has to know how to translate music into a communicative force that makes the listener want to hear what he has to say.

Perhaps the chief requirement of [the conductor] is that he be humble before the composer; that he never interpose himself between the music and the audience; that all his efforts, however strenuous or glamorous, be made in the service of the composer's meaning - the music itself, which, after all, is the whole reason for the conductor's existence.

When you are the host, you have to take the party into your hands like a conductor.

It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it.

You know as I started as a shy young conductor, I always wanted to cooperate. To build up the musicians. To help them to be better than without a conductor. And sometimes young talented musicians have to be encouraged.

It's different for people who have not seen a symphony conductor conduct from a chair. I feel very connected to the orchestra in a way that a conductor sometimes does not feel. I think it's more visceral.

What appeals to me about an American music directorship is the involvement of the conductor with the orchestra and the community. I think that's a fantastic thing. In Europe, being principal conductor means merely that you're the person who does most of the concerts. For me, that simply isn't enough.

The most important thing for the conductor is that he or she listens. Her listening will make things sound a certain way. If the conductor listens well, the musicians listen each other better. The conductor can in effect impose a certain kind of listening for everybody.

The conductor's stand is not a continent of power, but rather an island of solitude.

I conceived of an instrument that would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra. The orchestra plays mechanically, using mechanical energy; the conductor just moves his hands, and his movements have an effect on the music artistry.

The great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them. But there are conductors that actually inhibit the players from playing with each other properly.

I can't even touch another conductor's baton. The center of gravity, the feel of the handle, puts me totally off.

Normally classical music is set up so you have professionals on a stage and a bunch of audience - it's us versus them. You spend your entire time as an audience member looking at the back of the conductor so you're already aware of a certain kind of hierarchy when you are there: there are people who can do it, who are on stage, and you aren't on stage so you can't do it. There's also a conductor who is telling the people who are onstage exactly what to do and when to do it and so you know that person is more important than the people on stage.

Zeal, the blind conductor of the will.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.

Baton technique is to a conductor what fingers are to a pianist.

I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.

Somehow, conductor as this superhuman conduit between the masters and the masterpieces and the immortals.

When I was young I wanted to be a bus driver, because my grandad was a conductor on the Routemasters.

An audience is an abstraction; it has no taste. It must depend on the only person who has (pardon, should have), the conductor.

Victor Hernandez, like an orchestral conductor directing his troops...

I first heard Mahler's second symphony aged 11 in Liverpool, and it inspired me to become a conductor.

There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a conductor say, 'Play softer,' as they're waving their hands in huge gestures.

Any conductor who tells you that if he is approached for the directorship of the Chicago Symphony that he's not interested in it, you know perfectly well he's lying.

The orchestra confides in me about their music director or their conductor, and I've never seen a conductor that's been liked by everyone.

Being a director or a conductor is a balance of many things. And to do it right is a very difficult tightrope to walk. I've come to the conclusion that there's really no way to be one hundred percent popular as conductor.

I'm a little less hungry as an actor than I used to be. When you're a director, you're the conductor of the orchestra, and when you're an actor, you're playing the violin. There's a thrill to each of them, but as the conductor, you get the fuller sound.

You are the conductor of your own success train.

My mother was an opera singer and my father is a clarinet player, composer and conductor.

I am somewhat exhausted; I wonder how a battery feels when it pours electricity into a non-conductor?

I mean, the great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all. Of course, a great conductor will have a concept and will help them play together and unify them.

You're about to be the conductor on the most brilliant, runaway train in showbiz. Good luck you'll love it.

The brain is a little saline pool that acts as a conductor, and it runs on electricity.

Wherever there’s a conductor, you’re sure to find a dead composer!

I had a year at 3 when I wanted to be a conductor in the opera.

Musical practice is too young an art in America to warrant a search for men with a conductor's gift.

I prefer it when the conductor follows me. It is more difficult to work with a conductor who does not listen - even if I understand that sometimes it makes sense when one person is ruling everything. But for bel canto, I have to have a conductor who listens and supports me.

A lot of people think the orchestra is playing and the conductor doesn't do very much, but the conductor's the person that gives shape to the music, gets the phrasing, and if he has really fine musicians in solo spots, the question is does he try to help them phrase, or does he let them go?

As a conductor I find the hardest tasks are to listen to the instinct of a musician and to hear the music behind the notes.

I have had much pleasure in working with Orphei Drängar during my time as chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and I consider OD to be one of the most brilliant men´s choirs in the world. The singers are highly professional and their repertoire is of a very wide range, but then they have been trained for years by Eric Ericson, the world´s leading choir conductor. I also admire the strength and the beauty of their voices. OD is an extraordinary powerful choir!

There's nothing quite like a real . . . train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute