Gustavo Dudamel

“I have eaten very well in Los Angeles. Marvelously!”

“It's not that people don't like classical music. It's that they don't have the chance to understand and to experience it.”

“Recently, I went to a disco with friends, and all the young people were saying, 'Dudamel, we want to go to your concert, but it's impossible because it's sold out.' It's really amazing.”

“Going to a concert can sometimes be very difficult. It can be a long journey. There's the ticket prices. But when the music goes to the community - not the community coming to the concert - they say, 'Wow! I didn't know that this music was so amazing!'”

“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.”

“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 that I need to learn a lot, a lot.”

“It's a small city where I have a lot of time to think. The orchestra and I have had a chance to connect very well in this time. I think of all the millions of people in Los Angles. There aren't that many millions of people in all of Sweden.”

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

“For me, Venezuela is very important, not just because it's a place I go to conduct, but because my family is there - my wife, my parents and my musical family.”

“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.”

“Of course, we also have to play in concert halls. This is our dream when you are a musician - to play in a good, comfortable hall with a wonderful acoustic.”

“In my imagination yes, I remember, when I was six years old, I was conducting all this concert in my house. But now it's real.”

“You have to believe that things will happen, you have to work and love what you're doing.”

“People say that having three orchestras is a crazy life, but it's better because you have three families. I want to have my own kids very soon. In future, I still want to conduct a lot, but less, to be with my family.”

“I set out to create a means whereby music could be a way of vindicating the rights of the masses.”

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

“Los Angeles is a very special city. It's a great ethnic mix, a great cultural mix.”

“My material life is simple.”

“I love to travel, but sometimes it's nice to stay in one place.”