Carlisle Floyd Quotes
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I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.
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America tends to worship the modest talent because it doesn't put us in an uncomfortable position vis-a-vis the artist.
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Opera is given so little attention in the national press.
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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.
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You can't possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you're doomed.
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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.
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I had all the normal interests - I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater.
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Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.
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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.
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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.
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When I've seen my operas in Europe, they have always struck me as more American than when I hear them here. I can't tell you what that phenomenon is.
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Anyone who creates something new or does something different artistically is going to be singled out.
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I think anything that is expressed directly and as honestly as possible will last.
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If an American audience is given a serious musical theater piece that is well produced, dramatically gripping and wonderfully acted, they'll respond to it.
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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.
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If something is successful with the audience, it's automatically suspect; the reverse is to say that not to reach audiences is the greatest compliment an artist can receive!
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We don't have access to a national forum that we had in those days, through the news magazines which were the television news of the time. It's very disturbing to me that we've sort of been pushed to the corners.
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There is something inherent in our democracy that tends to want to level. America is a little uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is distinctly superior in whatever way.
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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.
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It seems to me opera is just as relevant as an expressive art as anything else.
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I was interested in what was really going on in Salem at that time, and I resolved to investigate this seemingly unorthodox treatment of the people and the period.
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If I felt that one of my operas did not come off I would certainly say so.
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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.
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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.