The artist is something of an outsider in America. I have always felt that America does not value its artists, certainly not in the sense that the Europeans do.
From Carlisle Floyd
There's the Bacon society, which is fostered by his fourth wife Helen Bacon, but I don't know what kind of performances his music gets. He wrote symphonic music and some chorale music.
Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one's own personality.
What is American music? The most satisfying answer I've come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it's not one particular set of sounds.
It's necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you're dealing with more than one or two characters, it's very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story.
The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that's grown up outside of the traditional core opera public.
America tends to worship the modest talent because it doesn't put us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the artist.
I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.
If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so.
It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.
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