Orchestra Quotes

Then when I was in grammar school I played the clarinet, and then, after clarinet I played the flute in college orchestra - besides singing in the college chorus and things like that.

I conceived of an instrument that would create sound without using any mechanical energy, like the conductor of an orchestra. The orchestra plays mechanically, using mechanical energy; the conductor just moves his hands, and his movements have an effect on the music artistry.

The way it works: The orchestra plays a few selections of its own and I terminate the first part of the programme on piano, usually with a movement from a Mozart concerto.

Toting around a full orchestra on tour is very ambitious. I would consider doing a show now and then, like do a show at Radio City or Carnegie Hall with a full orchestra.

There's always a question of duration, there's a question of who the orchestra is. No one is free to write what you want - you collaborate on a film score, and one of the good things is that someone else's work is motivating you.

Sometimes there is a 36-piece orchestra going off in my stomach.

There is much modern music that is better adapted to a wind combination than to a string, although for obvious reasons originally scored for an orchestra. If in such cases the interpretation is equal to the composition the balance of a wind combination is more satisfying.

The other saxophones, except as solo instruments, really don't have much point in the orchestra.

If a professional musician in a symphony orchestra is playing Beethoven. But this particular orchestra have played this particular chestnut so many times, they can play it in their sleep. Does the genius remain present in the music or not?

The actor is concerned with his own bit of it, but the director's somehow trying to work the whole thing into a much bigger picture. It's like conducting an orchestra.

His style has the desperate jauntiness of an orchestra fiddling away for dear life on a sinking ship.

But if I can be convinced and then through the work that we do together, the orchestra can really be convinced of the big sweep of that communication that the piece suggests, then the audience will get it and it will be a good experience for all of us.

Personality is the glitter that sends your little gleam across the footlights and the orchestra pit into that big black space where the audience is.

That process by which you become a writer is a pretty lonely one. We don't have a group apprenticeship like a violinist might training for an orchestra.

You get more nervous in front of a lot of people. That's why, when you play a concerto, you play with a small orchestra, in some place where you don't feel that it is as important as Carnegie Hall.

The first nine albums there was never a Synthesiser, never any Orchestra. There was never any other player except us on the albums.

So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.

When I owned the theater, I had the Glen Miller Orchestra. I had 20 girls singing and dancing. I had a cast of characters. It was a big group production, as well as ushers, ticket takers.

Remember, if you do the same act for 20, 30 years it gets a little boring unless you've got something else going for you... And the orchestra really kept you going. They'd laugh at all your jokes, even if they'd been hearing them for the last 30 years.

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

I've been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment. As for conducting an orchestra, that's a job where I don't think sex plays much part.

In or orchestra we have many nationalities, types, and temperaments.

I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra.

And what unity is to be had, at a time when orchestras are dying out, and when opera houses are about to close their doors; what's going to come next - when nothing new in music, for the orchestra, is truly lasting: pieces are performed once, and then they're thrown away.

On the other hand, when I give it closer thought, I realize I'm not enough of a dictator to conduct an orchestra because it requires a pretty awful person. When you read these biographies of famous conductors, they are all awful people who fail in their private relationships.

As long as I can sing halfway decent, I'd rather sing than act. There's nothing like being in good voice, feeling good, having good numbers to do and having a fine orchestra.

I do read everything that we publish. We usually have to have two or three votes for a book before we take it on. So in that sense I suppose it is an orchestra.

The director is a bit analogous to the conductor of a symphony orchestra. It's a collaborative adventure.

I grew up in an era where an orchestra was like a treasure chest.

It has to be able to play at the maximum expression and communication in every style, and the only way you can do that is - like Verdi said - working with a file, every day, little by little, until the orchestra's collective qualities emerge.