Future Symphony Institute

We are shaped not only by music, but also by our opinions about music.

What do amateurs glean from a week spent inundated by one piece of music?

Group mentality has invaded the world of education in ways that threaten the young.

Tradition is best understood as “the hand of the gardener.”

Denigrating the intelligence of our audience is profoundly wrongheaded.

The present-day abundance of classical music is a testament to its deep roots in human feeling.

Serious composers must work on the rhythms of everyday life.

However impoverished a student’s experience, his taste will not remain at the level of ‘that’s what I like.’

There is, indeed, something very wrong with the state of higher music education in this country.

The modern tendency is to reject the purpose and the primacy of the European classical canon itself.

It is very possible that, by chasing “relevance,” our conservatories will make themselves irrelevant.

Education is the training of the sensibilities to love that which is worth loving.

The history of instrumental music and that of the cult of listening are interwoven with the history of the Church.

There’s a danger if every public decision is made by the majority for the majority.

The musical education I received opened my mind to the extraordinary part music has played in the history of the West.