"My goal is not to be a great tuba player and play in an orchestra. I mean, that is a goal in mind, but my goal is far beyond that. It has always been to make classical music more popular in our culture, and to explore and get better at other things. That’s partially why I decided to do more composing, more conducting, work in the orchestra office, things like that. I put myself in places to learn to be a musician, and what it means to be a musician, not just as a tuba player."

"I think, hopefully, [inspiration] is an important part of being successful. Because the whole process is being creative, and you need inspiration. If you want to communicate something, or an idea to somebody, it wont be convincing if you don’t believe in it, or are inspired by it yourself. Sure, it may be possible for a person with the greatest violin technique in the world to get a job who is not inspired by what they do, but I probably would not want to listen to that person play."

"It does not make sense to me why someone would continue pursuing music as a career if they were not passionate about it in any way. Like Yehuda says, if you can't draw inspiration or music from within yourself to extend through your instrument, then there is no point. At that instance, you should do something else."

"I think inspiration is really essential in those bursts of growth we experience. But I think it cannot be entirely extrinsic. You cannot always wait for the conductor to inspire you, or a colleague to inspire you. You will have those moments, and they will be beautiful, but there have to be points of intrinsic moments of joy and inspiration that you find in your own process that keep you going. Because those moments are beautiful too."

"I actually used to volunteer at a senior citizen residency, and I would play for them every week. There was this man who was always sleeping, could not talk, could not do anything. But one day I played a song that he recognized and he woke up. And everyone in the house was amazed. He actually started to sing the words of the song I was playing. The staff told me later, they said, “we hope you know he has not talked or opened his eyes in a long time, and you just made him wake up.” It was amazing. He died shortly after, which was really sad, but I feel like I gave him one last moment of happiness just because I was playing my instrument. I definitely hold on to that feeling whenever I’m having a bad day. That at one point in time I had an influence on someone’s life."