Conductor Quotes - Page 7

• Along the way [Mozart] got married; fathered seven children (two of whom survived into adulthood); performed as a pianist; violinist; and conductor; maintained a successful teaching studio; wrote thousands of letters; traveled widely; attended the theater religiously; played cards, billiards, and bocce; and rode horseback for exercise. Not bad for someone portrayed as a giggling idiot in the movies.

  Robert Greenberg

  Children, Teaching, Successful

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• The merit of poetry, in its wildest forms, still consists in its truth-truth conveyed to the understanding, not directly by the words, but circuitously by means of imaginative associations, which serve as its conductors.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Mean, Poetry, Understanding

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• I had a year at 3 when I wanted to be a conductor in the opera.

  Nina Arianda

  Years, Opera, Wanted

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• My parents met in music school and my father was a music professor and conductor. Growing up, we always had classical and contemporary music playing. There was a lot of Mozart and the Beatles.

  Sara Zarr

  Growing Up, Father, School

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• The life of any musician really doesn't fall into a normal schedule at all. Every week there are different rehearsals, different days and nights of performances, so we don't have a particular pattern that we can follow. For a conductor, it is a little bit worse because we have to allow for traveling.

  Leonard Slatkin

  Fall, Night, Schedules

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• We should think of the church as an orchestra in which the different churches play on different instruments while a Divine Conductor calls the tune.

  William Ralph Inge

  God, Thinking, Play

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• From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good.

  Bernard Arnault

  Play, Vienna

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• If we turn to the divine Conductor and follow the wise and loving baton that is His will, His Word, then the music of our life will be a symphony.

  Peter Kreeft

  God, Wise, Symphony

  Peter Kreeft (2009). “The God Who Loves You: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, p.14, Ignatius Press

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• Flower god, god of the spring, beautiful, bountiful,
  Cold-dyed shield in the sky, lover of versicles,
  Here I wander in April
  Cold, grey-headed; and still to my
  Heart, Spring comes with a bound, Spring the deliverer,
  Spring, song-leader in woods, chorally resonant;
  Spring, flower-planter in meadows,
  Child-conductor in willowy
  Fields deep dotted with bloom, daisies and crocuses:
  Here that child from his heart drinks of eternity:
  O child, happy are children!

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Beautiful, Song, Children

  Robert Louis Stevenson (2015). “New Poems and Variant Readings”, p.87, Read Books Ltd

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• I took the first James Kelman novel, 'The Bus Conductor Hines', home to my dad. I thought, 'My dad will like this; it's written in Scots.' But my dad said: 'I can't read that.' He was reading James Bond and John le Carre. That was part of what attracted me to crime - the idea of getting a wide audience.

  Ian Rankin

  Dad, Reading, Home

  "Gothic Scot". Interview with Robert McCrum, www.theguardian.com. March 17, 2001.

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• Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo. Shovel them under and let me work- I am the grass; I cover all. And pile them high at Gettysburg. And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun. Shovel them under and let me work. Two years, ten years,and passengers ask the conductor- What place is this? Where are we now? I am the grass. Let me work.

  Carl Sandburg

  War, Years, Two

  "Grass" l. 7 (1918)

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• Many, many years ago, I was one of the few conductors who talked to the audience and now a lot of classical conductors have figured it out... otherwise, you just get the back of someone's head playing music you could hear on a CD. It's not enough anymore.

  Marvin Hamlisch

  Years, Cds, Playing Music

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• 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

  Funny, Music, Humorous

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• Conductor, when you receive a fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare. A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare, A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare, A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare, Punch in the presence of the passenjare! Punch, brothers! punch with care! Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

  Mark Twain

  Brother, Eight, Blue

  Mark Twain, Gary Scharnhorst (2006). “Mark Twain: The Complete Interviews”, p.422, University of Alabama Press

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• Pablo Casals is a great musician in all he does: a cellist without equal, and extraordinary conductor and composer with something to say. I have been profoundly impressed by all I have heard of his work, but he is a musician of this stature because he is also a great man.

  Albert Schweitzer

  Men, Musician, Doe

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• I guess, as a conductor, one goes in and out of fashion. Your career starts with a bang, everyone thinks you're wonderful, and then with middle age, something happens and you go into the wilderness.

  Jeffrey Tate

  Fashion, Thinking, Careers

  "Jeffrey Tate: 'I've had to fight all my life'" by Tom Service, www.theguardian.com. October 13, 2011.

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• Let me say that I've never thought to conduct because the conductor has to think to the music before the orchestra. And the orchestra comes later. For me, it's terrible.

  Andrea Bocelli

  Thinking, Orchestra, Terrible

  "Domingo And Bocelli: Keeping Opera Relevant". Interview with Robert Siegel, www.npr.org. November 21, 2008.

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• There is no reason why a joke should not be appreciated more than once. Imagine how little good music there would be if, for example, a conductor refused to play Beethoven's Fifth Symphony on the ground that his audience might have heard it before.

  A. P. Herbert

  Play, Symphony, Littles

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• I was at La Fenice opera house back in 1991 with friends, and we started talking about a conductor whom none of us liked. Somehow there was an escalation, and we started talking about how to kill him, where to kill him. This struck me as a good idea for a book.

  Donna Leon

  Book, Talking, Ideas

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• For me, the most enjoyable type of singing is opera. It allows you to move, to wear a costume ... to do something with your body. When singing in concert you have to stand up in front of the audience, next to the conductor, which is less natural.

  Andrea Bocelli

  Moving, Singing, Body

  "Andrea Bocelli: 'Only preparation helps my stagefright'" by Andrea Bocelli, www.theguardian.com. May 10, 2009.

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• I have had much pleasure in working with Orphei Drängar during my time as chief conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, and I consider OD to be one of the most brilliant men´s choirs in the world. The singers are highly professional and their repertoire is of a very wide range, but then they have been trained for years by Eric Ericson, the world´s leading choir conductor. I also admire the strength and the beauty of their voices. OD is an extraordinary powerful choir!

  Neeme Jarvi

  Powerful, Men, Years

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• I have three siblings. My sister makes music. My older brother is a classical conductor, and my younger brother is a mixing engineer.

  Lisa Loeb

  Brother, Sibling, Mixing

  Interview with Marah Eakin, music.avclub.com. July 28, 2011.

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• You are the conductor of your own success train.

  William Cranch Bond

  Great Attitude, Great Positive Attitude, Train

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• What is a career, actually? Nobody can destroy my career. Only I can destroy my career, if I am a bad conductor. I've gone to lesser known orchestras in Scotland and Sweden, Detroit, but I have enjoyed the places I've been, and had success. I like the close community relations, and to solve problems.

  Neeme Jarvi

  Careers, Scotland, Community

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• I was the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad.

  Harriet Tubman

  Railroads, Underground Railroad

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