Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore.
“I think the crux of the matter was that if we were going to become partners in, for example, the International Space Station, we had to gain the respect of a country like the United States and particularly its space organization, NASA.”