Famous Quotes & Sayings

Penn Jillette

Working in television, you really need a composer who can work in many styles especially when you're working in comedy. Stockdale can do anything.

Charles Mingus

I always wanted to be a spontaneous composer.

Charles Ives

It is conceivable that what is unified form to the author or composer may of necessity be formless to his audience.

Alan Hovhaness

There are certain composers I have always admired very much, but I have always admired nature mostly and the music of the Orient.

Cecilia Bartoli

We consider Monteverdi the first composer of opera. There was someone before, but everything started with Monteverdi.

Arthur Honegger

The first requirement for a composer is to be dead.

Arthur Honegger

The modern composer is a madman who persists in manufacturing an article which nobody wants.

Klaus Schulze

Then, in 1983 I went on a very long concert tour all over Europe.

Klaus Schulze

My interest in his new toy, the Theremin, isn't very big. It simply does not fit into my way of playing music. I do not want to fiddle around with my hands in the air.

Eric Whitacre

Many composers use software to write music - programs like Finale or Sibelius. There are also recording programs. I should say I'm still very old-fashioned, I still use pencil and paper. But almost every composer I know does it the 'new way.'

I think the composer and production staff of an opera have a real responsibility to use visual elements of all kinds to make clear to the American audience, at any rate, exactly what is going on.

I think a lot of composers get into trouble just making up a plot and expecting an audience to follow that.

Lukas Foss

For years that may mean imitation. Then, one day, it is like a door opening, and a new thought comes in. Why not try this instead. Suddenly he is doing something original, almost in spite of himself.

Malcolm Arnold

Thrilled to be honoured by the ISM and to be joining such an eminent list of members who have received the Distinguished Musician Award.

Dhani Harrison

Im still getting used to being called a composer. A poseur, maybe.

David Del Tredici

I've always been a composer dependent on texts.

David Del Tredici

I began like all composers, writing for small groups. Chamber groups.

David Del Tredici

Well, American composers are the best composers. At this time in the world, we are where the energy is. We are the most diverse, the most iconoclastic, the most maverick, and the most skillful.

Gavin Bryars

I would also like the soloist to feel happy to put it in front of the public, because in the end he's on the firing line, not me.

Aaron Copland

Is there a meaning to music? Yes. Can you state in so many words what the meaning is? No.

The plan was that I was going to retire and take a job with the American Federation, but Nottingham Forest offered me a contract and there was interest from West Ham and another Premiership club.

He is expert in classical music. He knew the composers and knew their lives. He read their biographies. He knew the subtly of their music. And he knew about modern music and all the modern composers.

We train in the mornings, and then I go home and rest or sleep, and usually I go for a meal with Abel of a night, as we're the two with no family here, so we tend to hang around together.

Peter Jackson

I have greatly enjoyed my collaborations with Howard Shore, whose musical themes made immeasurable contributions to 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, ... During the last few weeks, Howard and I came to realize that we had differing creative aspirations for the score of 'King Kong.' Rather than waste time arguing with a friend and trying to unify our points of view, we decided amicably to let another composer score the film. I'm looking forward to working with James Newton Howard, a composer whose work I've long admired, and I thank Howard Shore, whose talent is surpassed only by his graciousness.

I have been told that a young would-be composer wrote to Mozart asking advice as to how to compose a symphony. Mozart responded that a symphony was a complex and demanding form and that it would be better to start with something simpler. The young man protested, 'But Herr Mozart, you wrote symphonies when you were younger than I am now.' And Mozart replied, 'I never asked how.'

Gavin Bryars

I did that as a personal journey when I was a philosophy student and working as a jazz musician, so I moved from philosphy to music.

Robert Moog

When I opened the T-burg shop, I thought I was going into the electronic kit business, ... Then I met a composer who wanted to make electronic music on tape. We got together just for fun.

I am the pianist of the duo, although Aleksey does pretty good... you know we've written more and more stuff where he has to play the piano. But you know, to be very honest, I actually went into music because I wanted to be a composer and a conductor. And piano was just one of the ways to get into that.

Kelly Ryan

Certainly, he was very, very well-respected as a composer for his mastery of every genre. That is one thing that is unique about Mozart.

Nobuo Uematsu

Basically I'm not a feature film composer and therefore I would probably not be able to provide scores at the level of professionalism in that field.

I have always maintained a high level of fitness, and that is why I am still able to handle the demands of playing in the Premiership. People have always commented on my fitness, and it's something I pride myself on.

Joshua Bell

I happen to love Saint-Saens in general. I think he's a brilliant composer and sometimes underrated in a way because people like to pass him off as fluffy and not being serious.

Rivers Cuomo

I felt frustrated by the limitations of rock and the lifestyle of touring around on a bus and playing the same songs over and over. So I went back to school to study music, and one of the things I got into was the Italian opera composer Puccini.