Top 188 Orchestra Quotes

Eventually we want to do a puppet musical with turntables in the orchestra pit.

There’s not an orchestra in the world that doesn’t have weaknesses. None of us can play everything well. The repertoire is just too big.

The Lord did not people the earth with a vibrant orchestra of personalities only to value the piccolos of the world. Every instrument is precious and adds to the complex beauty of the symphony.

To me, that’s when music was music. Every studio had a full symphonic orchestra and a whole bunch of singers they used on every picture. Every radio show had singers on it, and NBC and CBS had their own staff orchestras. Music was everything. And it was good music; it wasn’t based on three chords.

Many people who don’t like Rachmaninov’s style consider the ‘Rhapsody’ his masterpiece. It’s written fantastically well for orchestra and piano. He combines a lot of effervescence with a deep, Romantic spirit.

I grew up in such a musical family, and my dad was the first chair in the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, and my mom was a piano teacher and a painter, so it was kind of a creative environment, and it was kind of in my DNA.

It is very gratifying to see the music from ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy find a new life on the concert stage as it is performed by different orchestras and choruses throughout the world.

Directors have a tendency to use their hands like orchestra conductors. They don’t realize that the actor is looking at their faces, anyway.

The role of an orchestra in the 21st century isn’t just playing, it’s about developing future audiences and performers.

When I want 30 musicians in the orchestra, I get 30.

Danzon is my favorite Cuban music, played by a traditional string orchestra with flute and piano. It’s very formally structured but romantic music, which derives from the French-Haitian contradance.

When I first wrote for orchestra, I didn’t realize, when you have 20 people playing a violin line, that is very different than one person playing that line.

Normally when you write for an orchestra, you think about melody and harmony and countermelody.

I went to study some orchestration stuff because I got so inspired working with all the orchestras.

I’ve been a woman for a little over 50 years and have gotten over my initial astonishment. As for conducting an orchestra, that’s a job where I don’t think sex plays much part.

They’re always so serious, the orchestras, you know? It’s always a fun contrast of that song and the genre of music. And me.

You can only learn orchestration if you have the possibility of using an orchestra.

I’m not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer.

Because I don’t take money, I’ll go anywhere and do a benefit concert with almost any orchestra.

In the restaurant business, as opposed to the theater, center orchestra is an 8 P. M. reservation. Orchestra on the side is 7 or 8:30. Mezzanine is 6 and 9. But people don’t take it personally when they call the theater and can’t get what they want.

People talk very much about, ‘What can we do with the orchestra in the 21st century?’ We should think about the 21st century, of course.

For me it always comes down to what is a good song and I’m very old fashioned in the way that I like to make songs that have something classic about them whether you can play them with an orchestra or an electro synthesizer or an acoustic guitar.

Good conductors know when to let an orchestra lead itself. Ninety percent of what a conductor does comes in the rehearsal – the vision, the structure, the architecture.

I’ve watched the demise of the Hollywood orchestra, the house orchestras of the big studios.

There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.

In western classical music with an orchestra, you focus the orchestra on melodies and harmony. In African music, the biggest focus is on rhythms and counter-rhythms – the complexity of rhythms.

My wife Elizabeth and I started The Really Terrible Orchestra for people like us who are pretty hopeless musicians who would like to play in an orchestra. It has been a great success. We give performances; we’ve become the most famous bad orchestra in the world.

I grew up listening to hipster jazz and classical records… we went and watched ballet and orchestras – lots of cool stuff. Which I’m really grateful for – it’s pretty nice being introduced to that when you’re little.

To me, the piano in itself is an orchestra.

I come to New Orleans so often that, one day soon, someone’s going to declare me a native. I love the food. I love the music. I serve on the board of the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra.

The better the orchestra, often the harder it is to conduct, not the other way around.

I would never inflict my bassoon on anybody really other than the long suffering audiences that come to the concerts of The Really Terrible Orchestra; which actually is really terrible.

With El Sistema, you can create orchestras everywhere; then they can decide whether they want to become professional musicians. The aim is not only to create musicians, but to create people.

When I did the anthem, I did it with the understanding in my heart and mind that I did it because I’m a patriot. I was trying to be a grateful patriot. I was expressing my feelings for America when I did the anthem my way instead of just singing it with an orchestra.

There are a few great orchestras in the world, thank goodness. Although some people do put them in ranking order, it’s not like a snooker match. Each orchestra has different things to offer.

For me, the main goal is loving music and experiencing the great music-making with the orchestra, which is the great reason why I conduct, and that is the main goal.

I want to take the great tradition of the orchestra within me, to take what the orchestra offers.

You get more nervous in front of a lot of people. That’s why, when you play a concerto, you play with a small orchestra, in some place where you don’t feel that it is as important as Carnegie Hall.

My experience with the Detroit Symphony has been musically very satisfying. They have a wonderful sound, which for me is one of the most important qualities in an orchestra.

The Metropole Orchestra is like Count Basie or Duke Ellington with strings… it’s strings that swing. Strings that swing like Dizzy Gillespie… keep swinging, baby. And when you have all of that special excellence of the Metropole Orchestra, then your music just flies – it soars in a way that’s really magical.

I first began with the recorder in our community music school. After that, I played horn and participated in the school orchestra.

The music for ‘The Departed’ could have been played by an orchestra, but you make a decision about orchestration based on the context of the film. You want the music to broaden the scope of a film, not just repeat what you’re seeing.

Bacharach has such a brilliant ear for melody and his music has a completely timeless feel to it; I thought it would be great to do a whole album of his music and to record with a full orchestra and big band which is something I hadn’t done before.

Because of John Williams, I began collecting all kinds of film scores. I listened to them when I fell asleep, and it was through my obsessive listening that I learned what all the different parts of the orchestra were. I learnt a great deal from him by just simply listening.

I think that there’s a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don’t have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

I worry about being a fogy and just writing for orchestras. Like, really, I should be doing more electronic stuff, I feel. Laptops as part of the orchestra, and installation sound, and speakers.

I often play on the cello-bass side of the orchestra, because I prefer the deep sounds. I can’t hear the violins well.

I also work with the regular orchestras in Munich, Germany and other similar orchestras.

I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.

I always imagined that to bring an orchestra to play together is not enough for a conductor.

I know that Boston is one of the great centers of intellectual culture as well as sport. It’s one of the centers of America, with a great orchestra, great sports, great hospitals, and great universities.

I knew, regardless of anything else, singing in front of an orchestra was going to be inspirational. It would feed me.

I loved when my dad was home. He liked to sit in the living room and watch boxing and baseball on TV. Or he’d be tinkering around or listening to records by his musician buddies – George Shearing, Oscar Peterson and the Jackie Gleason Orchestra.

I thought there couldn’t be a better backdrop for some kind of powerful music than a big orchestra. My wish to hear how a guitar would sound in front of an orchestra has always been there.