Orchestra Quotes

• You can't play a symphony alone, it takes an orchestra to play it.

  Navjot Singh Sidhu

  Play, Symphony, Symphony Orchestras

  25 Copy quote

• With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community.

  Gustavo Dudamel

  Community, Citizens, Building

  16 Copy quote

• The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.

  Benjamin Zander

  Inspirational, Music, Motivation

  143 Copy quote

• No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it.

  Halford Luccock

  Life, Teamwork, Science

  21 Copy quote

• A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.

  Max Lucado

  Motivational, Strength, Leadership

  Max Lucado (2010). “Chronicles of the Cross Collection”, p.205, Harper Collins

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• For better or worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life.

  Dale Carnegie

  Kindness, Thoughtful, Play

  Dale Carnegie (2010). “How To Enjoy Your Life And Your Job”, p.20, Simon and Schuster

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• There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.

  Thomas Beecham

  Funny, Music, Two

  In Harold Atkins and Archie Newman Beecham Stories (1978) p. 27

  31 Copy quote

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• We are members of a vast cosmic orchestra, in which each living instrument is essential to the complementary and harmonious playing of the whole.

  J. Boone

  Spiritual, Essentials, Members

  6 Copy quote

• The role of an orchestra in the 21st century isn't just playing, it's about developing future audiences and performers.

  Leonard Slatkin

  Roles, Century, Audience

  9 Copy quote

• Have you seen a symphony orchestra? There is a person at the back carrying a triangle. Now and again the conductor will point to him or her and that person will play "ting." That might seem so insignificant, but in the conception of the composer something irreplaceable would be lost to the total beauty of the symphony if that "ting" did not happen.

  Desmond Tutu

  Play, Symphony, Community

  11 Copy quote

• If I do not practice one day; I know it. If I do not practice the next, the orchestra knows it; if I do not practice the third day, the whole world knows it.

  Ignacy Jan Paderewski

  Leadership, Sports, Practice

  19 Copy quote

• The art of conducting consists in knowing when to stop conducting to let the orchestra play.

  Herbert von Karajan

  Art, Play, Knowing

  59 Copy quote

• It can and will be a more powerful sound but the orchestra has far more potential for expressive power. When I hear a great rock band it can make me feel alive, but when I hear a great orchestra it can make me feel human.

  Glenn Branca

  Powerful, Rocks, Band

  7 Copy quote

• You can find the whole world of a film in one instrument, or you can find a world of sound in the orchestra.

  Howard Shore

  Sound, World, Film

  "Score one for originality" by Chuck Crisafulli, www.hollywoodreporter.com. November 14, 2006.

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• In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely.

  Max Lucado

  Song, Play, Instruments

  Max Lucado (2008). “The Applause of Heaven”, p.154, Thomas Nelson Inc

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• I always maintain that playing in an orchestra intelligently is the best school for democracy. If you play a solo, the conductor and everybody in the orchestra follows you. Then, a few bars later, the main voice goes to another instrument, another group, and then you have to go back into the collective [sound]. The art of playing in an orchestra is being able to express yourself to the maximum but always in relation to something else that is going on.

  Daniel Barenboim

  Art, School, Play

  3 Copy quote

• In order to lead the orchestra, you must first turn your back to the crowd.

  Mike Mentzer

  Order, Crowds, Firsts

  85 Copy quote

• How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns?

  Desmond Tutu

  Soccer, Teamwork, Goalkeepers

  Desmond Tutu, John Allen (2011). “God Is Not A Christian”, p.50, Random House

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• I think it's a very important collaboration between the conductor and the orchestra - especially when the conductor is one more member of the orchestra in the way that you are leading, but also respecting, feeling and building the same way for all the players to understand the music.

  Gustavo Dudamel

  Player, Thinking, Feelings

  12 Copy quote

• I'm not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

  Leonard Bernstein

  Sound, Want, Classical Music

  21 Copy quote

• I sometimes like to think of God as a great symphony and the various spiritual paths as instruments in an orchestra.  The gift that you have is like music waiting to be played.  You need only to find the instrument that will best bring it out.  You alone can never play all the instruments, and your music might not find voice in all the instruments.  All you can do is find the instrument that suits you best, play it as well as you can, and add your music to the great symphony of divine creation.

  Kent Nerburn

  Spiritual, Thinking, Play

  19 Copy quote

• Get the most out of everything in your life; the happiness and the sadness, the success and the failure...get a good perspective of what life is all about. Let the orchestra of your life play all the notes, the high notes, the low rumblings of the difficulties and perplexities that all we all face.

  Jim Rohn

  Happiness, Sadness, Play

  7 Copy quote

• To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra.

  Cecil Taylor

  Music, Piano, Jazz

  47 Copy quote

• God comes to us in theater in the way we communicate with each other, whether it be a symphony orchestra, or a wonderful ballet, or a beautiful painting, or a play. It's a way of expressing our humanity.

  Julie Harris

  Beautiful, Play, Symphony

  9 Copy quote

• Conductors must give unmistakable and suggestive signals to the orchestra, not choreography to the audience.

  George Szell

  Music, Giving, Jazz And Life

  Newsweek 28 Jan. 1963

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