James Levine Quotes

We do not seem to be finding tomorrow's Toscas.

The Steinway pianos of today are the finest I have ever played.

Art has never been a popularity contest.

Women tend to have recognition and peer group support - recognition from friends and family that this has to be a big issue in their lives. They're more comfortable expressing the need for support and receiving it.

As major orchestras around the world are gripped in various kinds of crises and upheaval, we need to be sure that we are bringing up this new generation.

Great cataclysmic things can go by and neither the orchestra nor the conductor are under the delusion that whether they make this or that gesture is going to be the deciding factor in how it comes out.

It has to be able to play at the maximum expression and communication in every style, and the only way you can do that is - like Verdi said - working with a file, every day, little by little, until the orchestra's collective qualities emerge.

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

Second, if you're the boss, just because they don't ask doesn't mean your employees don't have needs.

Working mothers do an hour more per day than working fathers do and working mothers do on average an hour more per day with the kids than working fathers do.

There is no relationship between the gestures and what an orchestra will do.

At my age, you are naturally inclined towards teaching.

And, over the last thirty years we have seen men's participation in both housework and childcare has increased and women's have stayed at about the same.

More and more couples are having this negotiation or discussion, but I'm still amazed at the number who aren't and where the cultural norm sort of kicks in and they just assume that mom's got to be the one who stays home, not dad.

When they are performing in front of the public, they ought to have a sensation that's relatively easy, if the technical and the interpretive work was done before.

I was lucky that I met the right mentors and teachers at the right moment.

I grew up in an era where an orchestra was like a treasure chest.

My hunch is that probably men are doing more both outside the home and inside the home.

A lot of people get impatient with the pace of change.

What's interesting is that both men and women are struggling with this issue in remarkably similar percentages, but the big difference is that women tend to talk about this when men keep it silent.

I thought I'd write one book and the world would change overnight.

Where my tastes in music are concerned, I'm a real maximalist.