The Latest from Big Think

One of the most important skills a conductor must have is the ability to really focus. Gilbert says the confidence that comes from being well-prepared helps him get in the […]

The conductor describes what he was thinking and feeling during his first performance with the New York Philharmonic.

The conductor tries to make music as honest and natural as possible—but that doesn’t mean he keeps himself out of it. Gilbert says composers don’t necessarily know the best way […]

The idea of showing the tempo to help musicians play together is basic—but conducting so much more than that. It’s about inspiring them and making the musicians feel that there’s […]

A conversation with the music director of the New York Philharmonic.

For the International Bach Competition in Germany, the 14-year-old pianist played a fugue from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, a piece which helped her become the first American ever to win the […]

A great tower would have had a place at the World Trade Center site. But instead we’re doing a building that is “not that different from a lot of commercial […]

“Green” architecture has become so central to the making of architecture that it’s not longer a big deal.

There’s a tremendous interest in sustainability and green architecture, and a greater sense that buildings reflect their larger context.

The rise of celebrity architects has made building design part of the general cultural dialogue. People want to see more buildings that “arouse their passions, whether positively or negatively.”

Technology can sometimes create the illusion that a building can be created without a creative hand, or without a creative idea behind it. That’s not true at all, says the […]

The economic downturn has drastically cut the volume of new buildings. But the pause may “cleanse a lot of the crap out of the system.”

A conversation with the New Yorker’s architecture critic.

Game designers are having to think more like marketers: “We’re used to having fun be at the core, but now funding is at the core,” says Schell. “Now we design […]

The concrete sense of the achievement, combined with the opportunity for social engagement and a never-ending source of challenges make massively multiplayer online games a highly captivating form of entertainment.

In the future, video games may allow everyone to have a personal trainer, not only for exercise, but for their education, hobbies, art, spirituality—anything in their life that they’d like […]

Video game technology is the medium that subsumes all others. Once these games have the ability to listen to humans, they’ll be even more emotionally enticing.

Our educational system should be reinvented to harness the incredible power of educational games.

A conversation with the video game designer.

The late, great pianist is Huang’s favorite, but if she tried to mimic his daring interpretations, “it would not be very good,” she says.