With El Sistema, you can create orchestras everywhere; then they can decide whether they want to become professional musicians. The aim is not only to create musicians, but to create people.

I concentrated on Rossini when I began, and I never really felt any competition. I sang in the best houses, and I believed I was always a first choice. I was lucky in a way - I never felt there was someone else who was getting the roles in another theatre and that we were competing.

Sometimes at my performances, I see Peruvian flags in the audience. I've never seen, when an Italian sings, people with Italian flags. But with Peru, it's different: because there are not many famous people, they really celebrate the ones they have.

My parents never really wanted me to be a musician at all, because in Peru you don't earn any money that way. But when they realised it was genuinely what I wanted to do, they supported me always.

Large parties given to very young children... foster the passions of vanity and envy, and produce a love of dress and display which is very repulsive in the character of a child.

If I could ask for any life, I'd like to be the lead singer and guitarist for Willie Nelson & Family. That is to say, Willie.

I think you have to be a little bit strict. You can't be friend and their parent in a lot of situations, especially in this day and age where it's so dangerous for kids. So there's a bit of sternness, I guess, in the way I raise my kids.

At Christmas, I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies also at the heart of the Christmas story. A young mother and a dutiful father with their baby were joined by poor shepherds and visitors from afar. They came with their gifts to worship the Christ child.