Orchestra Quotes

I sometimes feel it is to my disadvantage that I have not conducted the Cleveland Orchestra or the Boston or Chicago symphonies, but then I have had to sacrifice something in order to have enough time with my orchestras. ~ Zubin Mehta

Great cataclysmic things can go by and neither the orchestra nor the conductor are under the delusion that whether they make this or that gesture is going to be the deciding factor in how it comes out. ~ James Levine

In the woods it was not so much that it was quiet as that the few sounds were loud and distinct, not the orchestra tuning-up of the city but individual grace notes. Birdcalls broken into pieces like a piano exercise, a tree branch snapping sharp and then swishing down and thump on the ground, the hiss of water coming off the mountain. ~ Anna Quindlen

A musical audience is at best uninspiring, at worst definitely drab ... Respectability hangs like a pall over the orchestra and the boxes; a sort of sterile sobriety ill-fitted to the passionate geometry of music. ~ Marya Mannes

From the first note I knew it was different from anything I had ever heard.... It began simply, but with an arresting phrase, so simple, but eloquent as a human voice. It spoke, beckoning gently as it unwound, rising and tensing. It spiraled upward, the tension growing with each repeat of the phrasing, and yet somehow it grew more abandoned, wilder with each note. His eyes remained closed as his fingers flew over the strings, spilling forth surely more notes than were possible from a single violin. For one mad moment I actually thought there were more of them, an entire orchestra of violins spilling out of this one instrument. I had never heard anything like it--it was poetry and seduction and light and shadow and every other contradiction I could think of. It seemed impossible to breathe while listening to that music, and yet all I was doing was breathing, quite heavily. The music itself had become as palpable a presence in that room as another person would have been--and its presence was something out of myth. ~ Deanna Raybourn

If the rhythm or beat of the music changes with a live orchestra, you have to think on your feet. If you feel like you are not on your leg, you have to make a decision to make it look as though nothing is going wrong. ~ Misty Copeland

The couples were dancing with hands on each other's hips, yelling in each other's faces, streaming with sweat. An orchestra in Bavarian costume whooped and drank and perspired beer. The place stank like beer ~ Christopher Isherwood

Working in Hollywood for the orchestra world is a very time consuming and laborious job. ~ John Williams

Why do you always insist on playing while I'm trying to conduct? ~ Eugene Ormandy

I hear these melodies. I hear horn lines and string lines. That's what's fun about recording with an orchestra. ~ Barbra Streisand

I have ambitions to do a Broadway record one of these days and get in the studio with like, a real orchestra. I'm a big musical theatre geek. ~ Mandy Moore

That's the way it was every time I studied it. ~ Eugene Ormandy

The piano is really the featured instrument of a 10-piece chamber orchestra. The construction is the harmonic language. ~ Howard Shore

A woman's life in the orchestra is not as long as a man's; she is just not as good at 60 as a man is at 60. ~ Zubin Mehta

The singers all loathe the sight of one another, the chorus despises the singers, they both hate the orchestra, and everyone fears the conductor; the staff on one prompt side won't talk to the staff on the opposite prompt side, the dancers are all crazed from hunger in any case ... ~ Terry Pratchett

The Gods have meant
That I should dance
And in some mystic hour
I shall move to unheard rhythms
Of the cosmic orchestra of heaven
And you will know the language
Of my wordless poems
And will come to me
For that is why I dance. ~ Ruth St. Denis

One athlete does not make a team.
One singer does not make a band.
One actor does not make an ensemble.
One participant does not make a contest.
One employee does not make a company.

One stroke does not make a portrait.
One word does not make an essay.
One paragraph does not make a thesis.
One note does not make a symphony.
One instrument does not make an orchestra.

One finger does not make a hand.
One toe does not make a foot.
One lip does not make a voice.
One member does not make a body.
One cell does not make a being.

One memory does not make an experience.
One habit does not make a character.
One act does not make a destiny.
One day does not make a year.
One moment does not make a lifetime.

One man does not make a family.
One home does not make a neighborhood.
One clan does not make nation.
One tribe does not make a continent.
One people does not make a world. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Ori Kam is an outstanding violist who has already played as a soloist with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra twice, much to our delight and satisfaction, and has availed himself with distinction. ~ Zubin Mehta

And though it has been in no way a romantic evening, she embraces me and this time emanates a warmth I'm not familiar with. I am so used to imagining everything happening the way it occurs in movies, visualizing things falling somehow into the shape of events on a screen, that I almost hear the swelling of an orchestra, can almost hallucinate the camera panning low around us, fireworks bursting in slow motion overhead, the seventy-millimeter image of her lips parting and the subsequent murmur of "I want you" in Dolby sound. But my embrace is frozen and I realize, at first distantly and they with greater clarity, that the havoc raging inside me is gradually subsiding and she is kissing me on the mouth and this jars me back into some kind of reality and I lightly push her away. She glances up at me fearfully.
"Listen, I've got to go," I say, checking my Rolex. "I don't want to miss… Stupid Pet Tricks. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Duke Ellington's career traces the entire history of jazz. The repertoire associated with him contains the most important elements in the music and provides concrete examples of some of the best ways to present the music in the widest variety of settings-radio, TV, recordings, movies, concert halls, festivals, solo, small ensemble, big band, symphony orchestra, opera, Broadway shows ... You name it, he did it! ~ Billy Taylor

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

There are two kinds of music. One comes from the strings of a guitar, the other from the strings of the heart. One sound comes from a chamber orchestra, the other from the beating of the heart's chamber. One comes from an instrument of graphite and wood, the other from an organ of flesh and blood. This loftier music I speak of tonight is more pleasing than the notes of the most gifted composers, more moving than a marching band, more harmonious than a thousand voices joined in hymn and more powerful than all the world's percussion instruments combined. That sweet sound of love. ~ Michael Jackson

The rhythm of music is very, very important for people with Parkinson's. But it's also very important with other sorts of patients, such as patients with Tourette's syndrome. Music helps them bring their impulses and tics under control. There is even a whole percussion orchestra made up exclusively of Tourette's patients. ~ Oliver Sacks

I sang 'O Holy Night' with the Vatican orchestra, but also a Blake - a lullaby that William Blake wrote for the Christ child, and I set it to music, and the Vatican orchestra played the music. ~ Patti Smith

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there's any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it's surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that's constant is change. ~ Warren G. Bennis

Jess Pepper's review of the Avalon Strings:

'In a land so very civilized and modern as ours, it is unpopular to suggest that the mystical isle of Avalon ever truly existed. But I believe I have found proof of it right here in Manhattan.

To understand my reasoning, you must recall first that enchanting tale of a mist-enshrouded isle where medieval women--descended from the gods--spawned heroic men. Most notable among these was the young King Arthur. In their most secret confessions, these mystic heroes acknowledged Avalon, and particularly the music of its maidens, as the source of their power.

Many a school boy has wept reading of Young King Arthur standing silent on the shore as the magical isle disappears from view, shrouded in mist.

The boy longs as Arthur did to leap the bank and pilot his canoe to the distant, singing atoll. To rejoin nymphs who guard in the depths of their water caves the meaning of life. To feel again the power that burns within.

But knowledge fades and memory dims, and schoolboys grow up. As the legend goes, the way became unknown to mortal man. Only woman could navigate the treacherous blanket of white that dipped and swirled at the surface of the water.

And with its fading went also the music of the fabled isle.

Harps and strings that heralded the dawn and incited robed maidens to dance evaporated into the mists of time, and silence ruled.

But I tell you, Kind R ~ Bailey Bristol

A wonderful, warm, positive individual who exhibits the values that are prerequisite to a significant faculty post in higher education, I think that it is an absolutely extraordinary and bold career move that Darwin has made in leaving the Orchestra and embarking on the trajectory of a solo performer/educator. And what a marvelous thing it is for Detroit to be able to welcome home a successful native son - one in whom the community can take pride, and one who will serve as an inspiration to a younger generation of aspiring performers eager to make their mark in the world. ~ David Cerone

Jess paints a pretty picture of an orchestra, but if we are one, then I'm the first chair violinist... who's been doused in gasoline and handed a match by the fans to watch me play while going up in flames. ~ Ashley Poston

Working with Prince, it's kind of like he's opened up this whole new world, especially with the horn players. And I'm like, 'Man, only if I had strings on this album, too.' And I'm like, 'I wish I had an orchestra.' So I just, you know - I just wonder what's next, you know. I just want to constantly push myself for more. ~ Liv Warfield

It is when music is added that a film can come to life for a director. A live orchestra, playing the score as a conductor watches the film on a huge screen, often gives a fimmaker the first real glimpse of his soon-to-be-completed work. That's where the magic is. ~ Robert Paul Wolff

As for the orchestra,' Quinsonnas continued, 'it has fallen very low since his instrument no longer suffices to feed the instrumentalist! Talk about a trade that's not practical. Ah, if we could use the power wasted on the pedals of a piano for pumping water out of coal mines! If the air escaping from ophicleides could also be used to turn the Catacomb Company's windmills! If the trombone's alternating action could be applied to a mechanical sawmill - oh, then the executants would be rich and many! ~ Jules Verne

Who is sitting in that empty chair? ~ Eugene Ormandy

Sometimes I sensed that the books I read in rapid succession had set up some sort of murmur among themselves, transforming my head into an orchestra pit where different musical instruments sounded out, and I would realize that I could endure this life because of these musicales going on in my head. ~ Orhan Pamuk

The Chicago Symphony is considered the greatest orchestra in the world. ~ Jane Byrne

It's funny, but to me, when you go to a concert hall and hear electronic pieces from the '60s, I think they sound really dated. But when an orchestra plays a piece from that period, and it's going to sound different every time, it feels more modern to me. ~ Jonny Greenwood

There's not an orchestra in the world that doesn't have weaknesses. None of us can play everything well. The repertoire is just too big. ~ Leonard Slatkin

Marital sex is a divine sympony between two people , and God is leading the orchestra . ~ Osunsakin Adewale

So, first you have to be able to play with a metronome. Then you take your freedom. If you play in an orchestra, you got to watch the conductor, he is like a metronome, but it is more difficult because he can change rhythms. ~ Ruggiero Ricci

Tanglewood [summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra] was a place where gods strode the earth. ~ Sarah Caldwell

But it is an orchestra," I say. "It's an imitation orchestra - an orchestrion, an orchestrina - whatever you call it, it does a terrible job! All you've done is turn a sublime group achievement, a human act, into an inferior egotistical solo - ~ Kim Stanley Robinson

We are all an instrument with a special notation to our individual identity. When you incorporate many beautiful notes together, you envelop a harmonious orchestra. ~ Steven Cuoco

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. ~ John Philip Sousa

If you combine good flavors, food turns into an orchestra. ~ Joey Fatone

Start three bars before something. ~ Eugene Ormandy

May night continue to fall upon the orchestra ~ Andre Breton

I, uh ... I have a television, so I'm going to spend some time here to tell you some things. [To orchestra conductor:] And, and ... and sir, you're doing a great job, but you're so quick with that stick, so why don't you sit. 'Cause I may never be here again.' ~ Julia Roberts

Nothing any man can do will improve that genius; but the genius needs his mind, and he can broaden that mind, fertilize it with knowledge of all kinds, improve its powers of expression; supply the genius, in short, with an orchestra instead of a tin whistle. All our little great men, our one-poem poets, our one-picture painters, have merely failed to perfect themselves as instruments. The Genius who wrote The Ancient Mariner is no less sublime than he who wrote The Tempest; but Coleridge had some incapacity to catch and express the thoughts of his genius - was ever such wooden stuff as his conscious work? - while Shakespeare had the knack of acquiring the knowledge necessary to the expression of every conceivable harmony, and his technique was sufficiently fluent to transcribe with ease. ~ Aleister Crowley

Pardon me for loitering in front of an orchestra. ~ John Goodman

Why do you always start after my beat then rush to catch up? Do you want us to stay behind? ~ Eugene Ormandy

That was perfect. It was just the opposite from what I said yesterday. ~ Eugene Ormandy

An American orchestra doesn't want to play more than it has to. I respectfully disagree with that attitude. ~ Zubin Mehta

Feel the power of your legs, hear the orchestra playing, see the audience - anything to make the image more real. The image has to be specific. You can't just say to yourself, 'I'll do my best.' You have to have a mental blueprint of that role in your mind. ~ Linda Hamilton

To his orchestra Stop da music, stop da music! You're supposed to follow da music, not chase it all over da place. ~ Jimmy Durante

The guitar is an orchestra in itself. ~ Ludwig Van Beethoven

When I composed, I heard my music played by the orchestra within days of completion of the score. No master at a conservatory, no matter how revered, can teach as much by verbal criticism as can a cold and analytical hearing of one's own music being played. ~ Andre Previn

The alarm in the morning? Well, I have an old tape of Carlo Maria Giulini conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a perfectly transcendent version in Shubert's seventh symphony. And I've rigged it up so that at exactly 7:30 every morning it falls from the ceiling onto my face. ~ Stephen Fry

With an orchestra you are building citizens, better citizens for the community. ~ Gustavo Dudamel

I've watched the demise of the Hollywood orchestra, the house orchestras of the big studios. ~ Skitch Henderson

Eventually we want to do a puppet musical with turntables in the orchestra pit. ~ Eric San

Anyone could be in the orchestra, or sports team, or arts club at my school. It was precisely the kind of inclusivity that now meets with a sort of scorn and derision as a prizes-for-all culture that generates only mediocrity. There's something so insulting about the idea that including lots of people means mediocrity. ~ Elizabeth Price

I love Gustavo Dudamel and I love what he does for classical music, and I love what he comes out of, El Sistema and the old man Abreu. When we were in Venezuela, I had the chance to go to his building. He had, like, five or six orchestras playing of kids from the hood playing, like, Mahler's third symphony and Shostakovich fifth and Beethoven. Man, it's unbelievable. I mean, they could play. ~ Wynton Marsalis

The Prince stood beside the timpanist to count his rests for him and see that he came in in the right place. I suppressed all the trumpet passages which were clearly beyond the players' grasp. The solitary trombone was left to his own devices; but as he wisely confined himself to the notes with which he was thoroughly familiar, such as A flat, D and F, and was careful to avoid all others, his success in the role was almost entirely a silent one. ~ Hector Berlioz

To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra. ~ Cecil Taylor

Her fingers flew, her fiddle was an entire orchestra, and every note beautifully brought into being struck a chord of satisfaction within her. She wondered at the unfamiliar lightness in her chest and realised she was laughing.
So great was her focus, it took her a while to register the strange expression that crept to Brocker's face as he listened, finger tapping the armrest of his chair. His eyes were fixed behind Fire and to the right, in the direction of Archer's back doorway. Fire comprehended that someone must be standing in Archer's entrance, someone Brocker watched with startled eyes.
And then everything happened at once. Fire recognised the mind in the doorway; she spun around, fiddle and bow screeching apart; she stared at Prince Brigan leaning against the door frame. ~ Kristin Cashore

It's a heady aphrodisiac being exposed to his unique voice when he adopts that tone. His voice reverbs on a bunch of notes simultaneously. It's the first thing you notice about Ryan, his voice sounds like an orchestra playing a symphony composed by angels. It's most distracting until you grow immune to it, and now I'm back to completely infected with the Ryan voice virus. ~ Poppet

When I had no gym,
The Divine One gave me rocks.
When I had no health,
The Divine One gave me herbs.
When I had no perfume,
The Divine One gave me flowers.
When I had no bathtub,
The Divine One gave me rivers.

When I had no tap water,
The Divine One gave me springs.
When I had no diamonds,
The Divine One gave me stars.
When I had no umbrella,
The Divine One gave me trees.
When I had no companions,
The Divine One gave me animals.

When I had no pool,
The Divine One gave me lakes.
When I had no bed,
The Divine One gave me fields.
When I had no pillow,
The Divine One gave me hay.
When I had no shelter,
The Divine One gave me a forest.

When I had no bodygaurds,
The Divine One gave me angels.
When I had no teacher,
The Divine One gave me nature.
When I had no orchestra,
The Divine One gave me crickets.
When I had no choir,
The Divine One gave me birds.

When I had no lamp,
The Divine One gave me the sun.
When I had no blanket,
The Divine One gave me the sky.
When I had no mansion,
The Divine One gave me the world.
When I had no wealth,
The Divine One gave me the universe. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Only the French, I guess, really use tenor and alto to any great extent in the orchestra. ~ Gerry Mulligan

Every philharmonic orchestra merely interprets the composer. My goal was to create new music by that composer. In doing so, I wanted to find the painter's creative center and become familiar with it, so that I could see through his eyes how his paintings came about and, of course, see the new picture I was painting through his eyes - before I even painted it. ~ Wolfgang Beltracchi

I was curious about experimenting with different colors - kind of like having an expanded orchestra. Suddenly, instead of just writing for strings, you can add bassoon and oboe and brass. I like these extreme differences in sounds right next to each other. ~ Caroline Shaw

Composer" is a word which here means "a person who sits in a room, muttering and humming and figuring out what notes the orchestra is going to play." This is called composing. But last night, the Composer was not muttering. He was not humming. He was not moving, or even breathing.
This is called decomposing. ~ Lemony Snicket

I change the language with which I use my voice. In opera, I know I have an orchestra behind me; I have to communicate to people very far from me. ~ Andrea Bocelli

Farsi Couplet:
Naala-e zanjeer-e Majnun arghanoon-e aashiqanast
Zauq-e aan andaza-e gosh-e ulul-albaab neest


English Translation:
The creaking of the chain of Majnun is the orchestra of the lovers,
To appreciate its music is quite beyond the ears of the wise. ~ Amir Khusrau

I tend to work in layers. There's a huge orchestra in the film, but I also record a lot things with very intimate groups, and I like to be able to use the textures of those intimate groups. ~ Steven Price

I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he'd be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies - George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra. ~ Natalie Cole

I never shied away from a challenge and I love doing big, epic films. They're interesting to me just on a pure music level, just in terms of the amount of music I could create for a symphony orchestra and chorus. ~ Howard Shore

This very pride in keeping his word was that he was keeping it to miscreants. It was his last triumph over these lunatics to go down into their dark room and die for something that they could not even understand. The barrel-organ seemed to give the marching tune with the energy and the mingled noises of a whole orchestra; and he could hear deep and rolling, under all the trumpets of the pride of life, the drums of the pride of death. ~ G.K. Chesterton

I listen to the summer symphony outside my window. Truthfully, it's not a symphony at all. There's no tune, no melody, only the same notes over and over. Chirps and tweets and trills and burples. It's as if the insect orchestra is forever tuning its instruments, forever waiting for the maestro to tap his baton and bring them to order. I, for one, hope the maestro never comes. I love the music mess of it. ~ Jerry Spinelli

The piano is an orchestra with 88 ... things, you know ~ Vladimir Horowitz

The conductor is a peculiar person. He turns his back on his friends in the audience, shakes a stick at his players in the orchestra, and then wonders why nobody loves him. ~ Victor Borge

The Russians were all really accommodating, and that made it really special. To be allowed in Catherine's Summer Palace ... Lily [James] and I have this scene where we fall in love and we waltz up and down this enormous gold hall with thousands of candles and a live orchestra and 300 Russian extras. To do those scenes in situ really meant it was a once-in-a-lifetime job. ~ James Norton

Acting is just playing the violin in an orchestra. Directing is being the conductor. ~ Jason Bateman

The poorest paid architect, engineer, general, author, sculptor, painter, lecturer, advocate, legislator, actor, preacher, singer is constructively in heaven when he is at work; and as for the musician with the fiddle-bow in his hand who sits in the midst of a great orchestra with the ebbing and flowing tides of divine sound washing over him
why, certainly, he is at work, if you wish to call it that, but lord, it's a sarcasm just the same. ~ Mark Twain

And he [Louis Brandeis] talks to his young acolyte, Horace Kallen, who wrote this beautiful book called Cultural Pluralism, and he comes to believe that by being better Jews, or better members of our ethnic group, we can be better Americans, because America is like an orchestra in which identity is defined by the diversity of perspectives that we bring to the table. ~ Jeffrey Rosen

The Woodshed Orchestra trade in exuberance and might, a glistening thunderslap on the hind of musical atrophy. These songs leap from disc to lap, a many-legged beast trundling with joy and vision. ~ Dave Bidini

At a rehearsal I let the orchestra play as they like. At the concert I make them play as I like. ~ Thomas Beecham

I feel so entirely in my element with a full orchestra; even if my mortal enemies were marshalled before me, I could lead them, master them, surround them, or repulse them. ~ Robert Schumann

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

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

I said old Jesus probably would've puked if He could see it - all those fancy costumes and all. Sally said I was a sacrilegious atheist. I probably am. The thing Jesus really would've liked would be the guy who plays the kettle drums in the orchestra. ~ J.D. Salinger

The range of rhythms in prose is larger and grander than it is in poetry, and it can handle discursive ideas and plain information as well as character and story. It can do everything. I felt as though I had switched from a single reed instrument to a full orchestra. ~ Annie Dillard

I always imagined that to bring an orchestra to play together is not enough for a conductor. ~ Kurt Masur

I come to New Orleans so often that, one day soon, someone's going to declare me a native. I love the food. I love the music. I serve on the board of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. ~ Soledad O'Brien

I never thought the orchestra should be big. ~ Alexandre Desplat

Something went wrong. It was correct when I studied it. ~ Eugene Ormandy

Last night I snuck an orchestra into the elevator at my apartment. We made elevator music history until Marvin got his oboe caught in the door and Mrs. Hoffstead started singing "Yes We Have No Bananas Today" in the hall so loud the police were called in from Equador. ~ Jarod Kintz

As you get older - for example, in our band we have members of our orchestra, like Carlos Enriquez and Ali Jackson and Walter Blanning. I taught them when they were in high school, and now they teach me.I'll regularly call Ali and say, "Man, can you break this rhythm down for me?" Or Carlos was actually our music director in Cuba, and he's been instrumental in a lot of my education, and I started to develop a saying with them, because they tease me all the time - you get older, you have that familiar relationship - I say, "You have to follow your young leadership, too." ~ Wynton Marsalis

The Russian composers, especially, tricked the symphony orchestra into the kind of dynamic, rhythmic thing. ~ Gerry Mulligan

He was listening so I don't remember. ~ Eugene Ormandy

When you play a concerto with a small orchestra, you don't feel it is as important as Carnegie Hall. You try to work out all the little problems. Once that's all done, trust comes in. ~ Itzhak Perlman

We do not know when he is coming. He is coming tomorrow. ~ Eugene Ormandy