My mother, Minuetta Kessler, was a concert pianist and composer who performed at Carnegie Hall and Town Hall.
I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.
I want to expand jazz; I don't want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.
I saw Berry in concert a couple of times in the late '70s - and like almost every North American male of a certain age, I went because a friend was hired by Berry that very day to be part of the legend's backup band.
When you pay your money to see me, I want you to have the best concert you can have from me.
I actually went to an Oasis concert. I thought they were a brilliant songwriting band.
In Berlin... it's important to present a concert that will change their ears... so if you present a Tchaikovsky symphony, you get almost no audience.
When I write, I'm sort of old-fashioned in the sense that I like to write something that I feel I could just perform alone, obviously, because I do that a lot in concert.
For a while, I tried to masquerade as somewhat of a hippie because I was under the impression that was the kind of guy girls would like. I was pretty unsuccessful because I liked the idea of camping more than actually camping. I did go to a Grateful Dead concert, but I was pretty bored.
I was conscious of being wordy as a child. I was a terrible talker. I memorised the Latin names of flowers at five; I was shown off as a freak. My father encouraged me to be wordier than I was: he'd been a street orator at the time of Mosley, and his ideal primary concert speech was Henry V's speech before Harfleur.
I first played the Royal Albert Hall when I was 14. I was a violinist with the Birmingham Schools Concert Orchestra, and we travelled down from the Midlands for the last night of the School Proms. We played some pieces from the Harry Potter films, and the violin parts were really hard.
In a sense, the god we trust politically is a slightly different god than the one we bring into the fray when we enter a rock concert. One of the things I can say with absolute conviction is that I worship that god.
I like What Goes Around Comes Around for old concert tees. Oh man, I got this 'Sgt. Pepper' cartoon Beatles shirt there; it was, like, $300. I didn't even know how much it cost - I thought it was gonna be, like, $80 at most - till I got to the register and was like, 'Oh mah gawd!' Good Lord. But it's classic vintage rock, you know?
I not only play at the prestigious classical concert halls like Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center, but also hospitals, churches, prisons, and restricted facilities for leprosy patients, just to mention a few.
I went to a Katy Perry concert, and I experienced pure bliss for the first time in my life.
First concert I ever went to was a group called The Yardbirds. Eric Clapton is the lead guitarist.
The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.
During the Second World War, nobody built any concert halls or theaters. After the war, Lincoln Center was a very brave project because all those architects had never built a theater before. We've learned a lot since then about the nature of materials and the isolation that's required.
As a piano player, if 10 is concert level, I'd put myself at a 5 or a 6, but in a completely different genre than classical or opera. In terms of classical and opera, playing accompaniment, I'd say I was a 3.
My parents told me I would become a doctor and then in my spare time I would become a concert pianist. So, both my day job and my spare time were sort of taken care of.
Concert repertoire is some of the most beautiful music ever written, and I frequently seek out opportunities to perform it.
I developed in my head that I'm never any better than my last concert or the last time I played, so it's like an audition each time. You get nervous just before going onstage. I still have that, but I think it's more like concern. You're concerned about the people - like meeting your in-laws for the first time.
I once won a second prize in a history concert. My parents came to the ceremony. Somebody else had won the prize for best all-around student. Afterwards my father said to me, 'Never, ever disgrace me like that again.' When I tell my Western friends, they are aghast. But I adore my father. It didn't knock my self-esteem at all.
The first concert that my parents took me to was in this canyon in Saudi Arabia called Buttermilk Canyon. You sleep under the stars in the desert, and ex-pats - German, Swiss, Canadian, American - would play classical music that filled the whole canyon.
I have a memory of this experience when I was young, watching 'Stop Making Sense,' the Talking Heads concert movie, which is one of the best concert movies ever, and I saw it in a full house in New Zealand, and everyone was cheering between songs, and you really felt like you were part of the audience at the gig.
I want every kid to go to college and be like a normal student. I want them to be able to go to a movie, go to a concert. I want them to be able to have that opportunity. But if you're paying kids, are you going to pay a lineman less than you're paying a quarterback? I don't know how to explain that stuff.
Playing a concert for 2 hours is pie. I would do that every minute of every day if I could. I love to perform. It's the 22 hours before the next show that kills you.
I do remember being in high school and trying to go to an Outlaws concert, but I was too drunk and ended up in trouble with the police at some truck stop on 95 in Connecticut.
You know, a lot of people are loath to go to an orchestral concert because they are intimidated by the thought.
The world is full of ways for people to dance. Concert dance doesn't get its due.
Going to a concert is so overwhelming and the energy is amazing.
Almost every one of my various zero numbered birthdays has had a big concert in London and often in Paris.
I had my first concert in front of 80,000 people at the International Soca Monarch Finals.
I was scouted at a Cure concert. A model scout approached me there and asked me if I modeled, and I thought that was ludicrous.
I pluck with my fingernails. If I break a nail, I can't cancel a concert. So I can make a nail out of a ping-pong ball.
If there's one thing that I love as an entertainer, it's a spectacle. We all have looked up to either Michael Jackson or Madonna or Janet Jackson or anyone of those things. When I was in *N SYNC, I would watch any concert video ever and really drink it all in.