I admire Tom Ades: he's a brilliant conductor, and he gets just the right hard, brilliant sound from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Russian music.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

During his four-year tenure as conductor of the symphony orchestra, Kevin did much to raise the standards for the group. He challenged them with new repertory as well as with some of the giants of the traditional repertory. His performance of the Mahler Second Symphony was said by some long-time music faculty to be one of the highest points in the history of the School of Music.

I love the way Monteverdi's opera embodies the triumph of evil love in such a luscious way. The closing love duet is just pure amoral, liquid passion. The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment sound great in the Albert Hall, and the Glyndebourne cast is fabulous.

Music is about communication, and the chemistry between an audience and the orchestra is absolutely essential; the performance does not exist in a bubble.

We're the orchestra and he's the conductor.