27 April 2020 I created this little video (under 10 mins - linked below) in honor of College and University Music Students everywhere who are trying to prepare for upcoming remote juries courtesy of Coronavirus. These are strange times indeed... Continue Reading →
Joan Tower (b. 1938) We have a requirement in the conservatory at Bard that you have to take composition for at least one semester. And it’s a fantastic idea... because it opens up the players to being on the other... Continue Reading →
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in... Continue Reading →
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) The essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, passion. A great work is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty. Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to... Continue Reading →
Charles Ives (1874-1954) Every great inspiration is but an experiment - though every experiment we know, is not a great inspiration. There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes directly out of the heart of the experience of... Continue Reading →
Rehearsal and voice lesson quotes compiled by Debra's students - also quotes found penciled in the margins of choir music returned at the end of the semester. Rational thinking? Not so much. Creative thinking? We've got this! Perspective changes everything.... Continue Reading →
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature and everlasting... Continue Reading →
Stewart Copeland (b. 1952) The critical factor that makes me a composer, and that you can't really be a composer without, is a river of music going through my head almost 24/7. It's just a fact of my life that... Continue Reading →
Clara Schumann (1819-1896) There is nothing greater than the joy of composing something oneself and then listening to it. My health may be better preserved if I exert myself less, but in the end doesn't each person give his life... Continue Reading →
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it. To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also. Too many pieces of music finish... Continue Reading →
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend. Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. Music is the electrical soil in... Continue Reading →
22 April 2020 December of this year marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. Conductors all over the world have programmed his works for their 2020 concerts. My colleague Scott Humphries and I were planning an all Beethoven concert with... Continue Reading →
20 April 2020 All creatives have what I call "isms." These are idiosyncracies that naturally evolve or become apparent as one builds up a body of work. Each time we encounter a blank canvas, sheet of staff paper, or whatever... Continue Reading →
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