Composer Quotes - Page 15

• Jerry Goldsmith is the #1 composer working now. He's open to new ideas and always inventing.

  Elmer Bernstein

  Ideas, Working Now, Jerry

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• If I were to die tomorrow, I think they'd say Newman 56, composer of the hit song, Short People. Jumped off a mountain today.

  Randy Newman

  Song, Thinking, People

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• Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme, now high, now low, in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven with the chant.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Creativity, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.59

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• Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water.

  Jean Sibelius

  Water, Hue, Cocktails

  "Sibelius: The Symphonies" by Cecil Gray, London: Oxford University Press, (p. 56), 1935.

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• The composers hated me. The singers detested me. The guitarists were terrified by me.

  Bulat Okudzhava

  Singers, Hated, Terrified

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• Freddie Bryant is a brilliant young guitarist and composer.

  Kenny Burrell

  Brilliant, Young, Guitarist

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• Tim Price continues to explore and develop his deeply personal approach to music. Through the years his persistence, determination and passion has enabled him to create a stellar reputation as a multiple woodwind master, composer, producer, author and last but not least educator. Tim is one of the best musicians active today and I'm happy to say he's my friend.

  Bennie Maupin

  Determination, Passion, Persistence

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• By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men's souls.

  John Galsworthy

  Men, Soul, Texture

  John Galsworthy (2016). “The Forsythe Saga”, p.306, Xist Publishing

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• A young pianist & composer who has demonstrated an exceptional creativity, in both his playing & his writing, as well as showing us all, his very strong commitment & motivation to aim for high musical goals. Talent like his is rare.

  Steve Lacy

  Strong, Motivation, Writing

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• I'm a fanatic about Irish music. I love its moody, modal and timeless quality. I'm different from some other composers, because I don't look at this as just a job. I think of music as art.

  James Horner

  Art, Jobs, Thinking

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• Although in society in general, the idea of an Irish composer of 'classical music', or whatever you want to call it, is still a strange item, generally speaking. Even in the arts, among our fellow creative artists in other disciplines, you still feel slightly out of it.

  John Kinsella

  Art, Ideas, Discipline

  Source: www.cmc.ie

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• I think that being a film composer, someone that gets it and actually applies the music, it allows you to open up a spectrum of feeling. You're now allowed to approach the music from an audio visual perspective.

  Adrian Younge

  Thinking, Perspective, Feelings

  "Above the Line: An Interview with Adrian Younge". AllHipHop.com Interview, allhiphop.com. July 10, 2015.

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• One yearns unspeakably for a composer who gives out his pair of honest themes, and then develops them unashamed, and then hangs a brisk coda to them, and then shuts up.

  H. L. Mencken

  Giving, Pairs, Honest

  H. L. Mencken (2000). “H.L. Mencken's Smart Set Criticism”, p.99, Regnery Publishing

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• In many ways I'm an experimental and new music composer that comes from a rural tradition rather than an urban one.

  Sxip Shirey

  Way, Urban, Tradition

  "Sxip Shirey’s Magic Journey: Sonic New York" by Holly Cara Price, www.huffingtonpost.com. July 18, 2010.

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• New Amsterdam Records, a new label run by composers, has begun documenting this hybrid music, with invigorating discs by the band itsnotyouitsme and the composers Corey Dargel and William Brittelle.

  Allan Kozinn

  Running, Labels, Band

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• To call somebody a Jewish composer is obviously redundant.

  Mitch Leigh

  Redundant

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• It's hard to put into words the impact of the perfect lyric, melody or contagious beat that moves you in an unexpected way. Authors, composers and artists have tried - and here we've rounded up our favorite quotes that help to begin forming structure around such an unspoken universal force. Which are most meaningful to you? If you had to sum up the power of music and sound in one sentence, what would you say?"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence."

  Leopold Stokowski

  Meaningful, Moving, Artist

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• As a composer you want to tell musicians two completely contradictory things. You want to say, "Play exactly what I wrote, but bring your own thing to it." In a lot of ways they feel like opposites, but in a sense, my job is to cajole or encourage decisions that I approve of.

  Nico Muhly

  Jobs, Opposites, Play

  Interview with Sean Michaels, believermag.com. October 1, 2008.

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• I came across a lot of young composers who have got passion but lack experience. I want to help them out.

  Sukhwinder Singh

  Passion, Want, Helping

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• The best results come when people believe in and feel strongly about the music they are playing. Just as composers write for certain types of performers, performers are also looking for certain things.

  Michael Hersch

  Believe, Writing, People

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• George Rochberg once said that 'to be a composer, you need to have fire in the belly, fire in the brain, but most importantly, an iron stomach.' I feel this is for the most part true, and hope I might convey something of it to younger composers.

  Michael Hersch

  Iron, Fire, Brain

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. April 14, 2014.

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• My interactions with musicians have been simply that: interactions with musicians. Issues of gender, or anything else beyond the music-making, have in my experience played no role in whether or not a musician has been able to articulate my intentions as a composer.

  Michael Hersch

  Issues, Able, Musician

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. April 14, 2014.

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• My father was a very good amateur pianist, and he had a collection of books on technique. One of the things he had was a small volume of exercises by Rudolf Ganz, in which Ganz mentions the pedagogical work of the Swiss composer, Émile-Robert Blanchet, who wrote a ton of polyphonic exercises for one-hand. These exercises were a great help for finger independence, which I acquired early on. This might have given me somewhat of an edge, a facility to be able to knock any obstacle that was in my way.

  Marc-Andre Hamelin

  Father, Book, Exercise

  Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. November 8, 2013.

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• When I finally got together with Rostropovich as a student, he was very focused, almost entirely focused on the music itself, on what the composer had in mind and what he knew about the composer. Many of the works that I played for him had in fact been composed and written for him; he was often the first performer of these works, having known the composers personally.

  David Finckel

  Mind, Together, Firsts

  "David Finckel and Wu Han". Interview with Elijah Ho, www.thecounterpoints.com. July 11, 2012.

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• Presenting Aschenbach as a composer - based on Mahler - leads to some dreadful scenes (especially those in which Aschenbach is berated by his student), and it surely distorts the character Mann created. Yet, we know that Mann's novella was based on a holiday in Venice he took with his wife and brother, and that while he was there he followed the reports in the German newspapers, describing the dying Mahler's progress as he returned from New York to Vienna.

  Philip Kitcher

  Brother, New York, Holiday

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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