Our most intimate contact with civilizations long since dust has been through the art which has survived them.
From Carlisle Floyd
I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.
People in very high places suddenly fall, and we are always surprised because we don't factor in the basic element that they're humans and, therefore, they are flawed and have weaknesses.
We think the Puritans always dressed in black and white, which they didn't. They loved very bright colors. And there were other differences in perceptions that gave one a very different view of them.
Anyone who creates something new or does something different artistically is going to be singled out.
I think anything that is expressed directly and as honestly as possible will last.
I find it enormously valuable to be sure that that the pacing is what I think it is and that the scenes have the shape I think they have musically and dramatically.
The story of Willie Stark fascinated me because it was tackling the story of a man who outwardly has all the success one could possibly want and who is destroyed by his personal demons.
I was encouraged by my mother and, to a lesser extent, by my father.
Like any other composer of opera, I choose a subject not for polemical reasons, but because it contains vivid characters in highly charged dramatic situations.
4 perspectives
3 perspectives
1 perspectives