Two weeks after Lorin Maazel nominated Daniel Barenboim to succeed him as music director of the New York Philharmonic, Mr. Barenboim is appearing in New York with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a group composed of young Arab and Israeli musicians. The orchestra will perform tonight at the United Nations in honor of outgoing Secretary General Annan and tomorrow night at Carnegie Hall. Mr. Barenboim will conduct the concerts, which mark the orchestra’s first appearance in New York and only its second time performing in the United States.

In an interview on Friday, Mr. Barenboim repeated what he has said elsewhere about Mr. Maazel’s unprompted nomination — that, while he is flattered, “nothing is further from my mind than the possibility of taking up another permanent position in America.” Mr. Barenboim left the Chicago Symphony Orchestra last spring, saying he did not want to spend time on outreach and fund-raising activities, as music directors of American symphonies these days are often required to do. Asked recently whether he still felt the same way about these tasks, he said, “Absolutely.”

The conductor conceived the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra with his friend, the late scholar and advocate of a Palestinian state, Edward Said, and established it in 1999. (The name is taken from a cycle of poems by Goethe, inspired by his reading of Persian poetry.) This summer, during the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, the orchestra voted to add a political statement to its program, stating that there is no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the destinies of the Israeli and Palestinian peoples are inextricably linked.

“It is not an orchestra for peace,” Mr. Barenboim said. “Peace requires much more than this. But it is a message of the orchestra that there is no military solution, and therefore we have to learn to know each other and find a solution that is just for everybody.”

Mr. Barenboim went on to say that the parties must “achieve on the ground the conditions that we have in the orchestra, which are conditions of equality. When a Palestinian and an Israeli are playing the Brahms symphony on Tuesday night in Carnegie hall, in front of the Brahms Symphony, they are equals. But on the ground, in the West Bank, they are not equals.”

When Mr. Barenboim announced his departure from the Chicago Symphony, he expressed frustration with the marginalization of classical music in contemporary culture, but said he wasn’t motivated to spend his time fighting it. Mr. Barenboim expanded upon those comments recently, saying, “The core of the problem is that there is no music education in the schools. Therefore, classical music is not seen as part of the general culture. It is for the militant few who have a passion for it.”

But while he doesn’t want to do outreach as a music director, Mr. Barenboim is involved in educational initiatives. A charitable foundation he started with Said has started music kindergartens in Berlin, Seville (where the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is partly based), and Ramallah. “These are small models,” he said. “It requires a political will of nations to [revive music education], not of a few individuals.”

Asked if he had any suggestions for whom the New York Philharmonic’s management should pluck to be its new music director, Mr. Barenboim said,”It’s not up to me to suggest a conductor for the New York Philharmonic. I can only tell you nothing is further away from my mind than to do it myself!”

“The musicians at the New York Philharmonic are very intelligent musicians,” he added, “and the manager is a very intelligent manager. I’m sure they will find the right person.”

In any event, New Yorkers will get to see a lot of Mr. Barenboim in the next two months. Besides this week’s performances, he will return to Carnegie in late January as a piano soloist, doing two recitals of Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier.” He seems most invested, though, in the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and its message of harmony and cooperation. Asked how he chose the program they’re performing this week, which includes works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, Mr. Barenboim said, “The Mozart ‘Sinfonia’ has one Egyptian, one Syrian, and two Israeli soloists. It’s a wonderful piece to really show what the orchestra is about.”