The greatest composer does not sit down to work because he is inspired, but becomes inspired because he is working.
John Barry was the first film composer I was aware of. As a teenager I owned several of his Bond soundtracks.
It’s really strange, but they speak to me — the notes and the chords. So when I hear other people’s music, I can feel the composer. Whoever created that, I can see in their soul.
The (photographic) negative is the equivalent of the composers score and the print is the equivalent of the conductors performance.
With television you are producing hours and hours of music and for film it is a shorter experience for both the audience and for you as a composer.
The most important person is the audience and the composer. The rest of us - and even the composer is a servant to the audience. And of course, the audience is a servant to the higher art.
I wanted to be a composer before anything else. And my sister was listening to Led Zeppelin in the other room! When I heard that, it was a game-changer.
Most of the important composers in our country are clustered in the Northeast.
Elizabeth Lutyens was the first professional composer that I ever knew. I sent someextremely infantile pieces that I I'd written and got marvellous encouragement andinterest from her. . . she's certainly the English composer who's influenced me themost.
The composer makes plans, music laughs.
There are some composers - at the head of whom stands Beethoven - who not only do not know when to stop but appear to stop many times before they actually do.
It's a myth that you need to understand all the ins and outs of music. The ideal scenario is you have a conceptual, directorial conversation about what you're trying to achieve in a theme and then trust your composer to go ahead and do that.
No composer has yet caught this rhythm of America - it is too mighty for the ears of most.
Puccini - silver macaroni, exquisitely tangled.
I'm glad I won it because when I grew up the Pulitzer was the award that every composer wanted and I was like that too.
I always hankered to be a composer - I was mad about music, though I never studied seriously, and can't read a note. But I learned to play the piano and became pretty skillful at improvisation, especially after a drop or two.
There are no woman composers, never have been and possibly never will be.
I think a composer is always interested in his last work.
Originally, I wanted to be a composer. I always tell people, 'I think of myself as a composer.
Composers are always going back to the past.