Equally known as a performer and a conductor, Pinchas Zukerman will show both sides when he leads the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in a concert Saturday at the Scottish Rite Cathedral, New Castle.

Zukerman, an acclaimed violinist and violist, said there are similarities and drastic differences in preparing for each role.

"The mental is the same, learning the score, studying the parts," he said in a teleconference call from Pittsburgh.

With performing, most of the preparation is done ahead of time, working out the fingerings to passages and the dexterity required to perform them. Zukerman said he must practice his "fiddle" every day.

But with conducting, "All the work is really done in front of the orchestra," he said. "You never practice at home. You always practice with no less than 100 people."

Zukerman will take a solo Saturday on Bach's third Brandenburg concerto. He'll play a 1742 Guarnieri violin, his favorite instrument for 22 years.

"It's a Sears Roebuck," he joked.

Aside from performing and conducting, Zukerman teaches at the Manhattan School of Music and is music director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra of Canada in Ottawa.

He takes all his roles seriously and has embraced technology to help him fulfill his duties. While on the road, he beams lessons to his string students in New York through a videoconferencing system.

This sort of technology should be embraced by the classical establishment, with the financial backing of the business world and government, to spread music to areas where it often is not heard, he said.

The 53-year-old musician envisioned classical concerts and rehearsals broadcast in schools and nursing homes, and schools playing Mozart and Bach in hallways and lobbies before class begins.

Zukerman backed his vision with research and anecdotal evidence of music's effect on people.

Music helps get people through the day when they listen to it at work, and classical music helps students cram for tests by increasing their capacity to remember, he said.

Music is logical but also elicits an emotional response, invigorating both sides of the brain.

"When people don't feel good about themselves, it's because we haven't shown them how to balance the right and left sides of the brain," he said.

Zukerman is particularly struck by research that shows children exposed to music as babies are better able to grasp geometry, algebra and languages. A baby's brain is more able to absorb music than at any other time in a person's life, he said.

"You don't have to know punctuation marks," he said. "You don't have to know anything but listen to it."

Spending more money to introduce children to the arts and music earlier in life will make better people, he said.

"If we don't have the arts, particularly music, in our society, we will be animals," Zukerman said. "The society will become a jungle."

Parents can simply play music at home and encourage their children to explore music through the home computer.

"If a kid shows interest, the last thing I would do is show them a way of learning," he said. "They'll probably show me. They don't need very much. They just need you to say, 'Hey, it's exciting.' "

Zukerman said he has had no problems filling the hall in Canada with young people and families because the Canadian government mandates arts education.

"We need to create a cultural minister in the U.S. who worries about the next generation," he said.