I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.
— Harriet Tubman
Genuine Conductor quotations
I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.
The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound.
He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.
Music is a labyrinth with no beginning and no end, full of new paths to discover, where mystery remains eternal
To study music, we must learn the rules. To create music, we must break them.
So much of what we do is ephemeral and quickly forgotten, even by ourselves, so it's gratifying to have something you have done linger in people's memories.
Composing is like driving down a foggy road.
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.
Never miss an opportunity to teach; when you teach others, you teach yourself.
Journalists were never intended to be the cheerleaders of a society, the conductors of applause, the sycophants. Tragically, that is their assigned role in authoritarian societies, but not here - not yet.
Being a conductor is kind of a hybrid profession because most fundamentally, it is being someone who is a coach, a trainer, an editor, a director.
If you want to please the critics, don't play too loud, too soft, too fast, too slow.
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 very first time I was on a car in Atlanta, I saw the conductor - all conductors are white - ask a Negro woman to get up and take a seat farther back in order to make a place for a white man. I have also seen white men requested to leave the Negro section of the car.
[conductor Eugene Ormandy introduces Warfield to the audience in an unintentionally humorous way:] With us tonight is William Warfield, who is with us tonight. He is a wonderful man, and so is his wife.
Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra, not choreography to the audience.
Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.
A conductor should guide rather than command.
The greatest contribution jazz has made in music has been to replace the role of the conductor with a member of the ensemble who, instead of waving his arms to keep time and convey mood, is an active member of the musical statement. That person is the drummer.
We are aware that the conductor is not really making the music, it is making him -- if he is relaxed, open and attuned, then the invisible will take possession of him; through him, it will reach us.
Aromatherapy without massage is like an orchestra without a conductor
Music is the thousandth of a millisecond between one note and another;
how you get from one to the other-that's where the music is.
Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it.
The success of our operas rests most of the time in the hands of the conductor.
This person is as necessary as a tenor or a prima donna.
Today we can establish Sharia law because our nation will acquire well-being only with Islam and Sharia. The Muslim Brothers and the Freedom and Justice Party will be the conductors of these goals.
So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome.
Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms.
Shared leadership... is less like a an orchestra, where the conductor is always in charge, and more like a jazz band, where leadership is passed around ... depending on what the music demands at the moment and who feels most moved by the spirit to express the music.
I deny that either singers or conductors can "create" or work creatively - this, as I have always said, is a conception that leads to the abyss.
When I am with composers, I say I am a conductor. When I am with conductors, I say I am a composer.
There's a metal train that a mile long and at the very back end a lightning bolt struck her. How long til it reaches and kills the driver, provided that he's a good conductor?
Victor Hernandez, like an orchestral conductor directing his troops...
I was the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad.
The conductor's stand is not a continent of power, but rather an island of solitude.
I find little in the works of Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner and others when they are led by a conductor who functions like a windmill.
Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.