“Music is a story. It’s an unfolding of a story. And it opens the emotional pores to all of life’s experience. And that’s the purpose of transformation. Mendelssohn said that music is a much more precise language than words. And when you think of how easily we misunderstand words – and God knows there’s enough evidence of that at this time. But music speaks directly to the heart. It speaks through the molecules. And it’s irresistible. As I approach my 80th birthday, I have no intention of stopping at any point from doing what I do because it’s my lifeblood. That’s where I get my joy and my life from. It’s the sense that people’s lives are really transformed.”

—Benjamin Zander, From a broadcast conversation with Guy Raz on NPR’s TED Radio Hour