Jennifer Higdon famous quotes

I always tell people that my music should speak to them... and that they shouldn't feel obligated to say why or how. All reactions are valid; the important thing is to have the experience.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#People #Important #Speak

You don't need any specialized education and you don't need to know anything about the world in which I work. I think my music should be able to speak to you even if you've never been to a concert of classical music before.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Thinking #World #Speak

When anyone is creating anything, it has no choice but to be in that stream. The art I create and the art my colleagues create is part of it. But the question is: how long will it last in the stream? I think of it really as an enormous river, with its shores very distant from each other, and only time will tell what's going to last in the end. It seems to me that all music of our time is connected, but I never think about where I am in the river or how I would be placed by others inside of it.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Art #Thinking #Long

We're living in a time when pretty much anything can happen in the music world. There are a lot of musical languages in which people work. When I think of common practice I think back to the time I was studying the flute, where I learned that in the Baroque period many things were not notated, since they were understood - that was because of common practice.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Thinking #People #Musical

In fact, if you take any group of scores, it's likely that fifty to sixty percent are going to be so much alike that it's difficult to tell any difference among them. But I sometimes wonder if that has more to do with the quality of the art that's being made. There are always those composers who are going to move toward whatever is currently in fashion, there are others who will deliberately attempt to go in another direction. And sometimes, there are composers who will see themselves as being outside the stream and not even try to present their music to the general public.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Fashion #Art #Moving

My pieces usually are programmed on concerts in which the other works are standard repertoire. My music always sounds very different when it's on a concert of all contemporary music. It always seems to stick out at an odd angle. This also makes me think of a question I sometimes debate with my friends: does the music of a composer directly reflect that composer's personality? This is a difficult one, but I think it usually does.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Thinking #Personality #Different

As a consequence, I think of the idea of 'common practice' at any time as something that can only be seen by looking backwards. Maybe around the turn of the 20th century there might have been some kind of common practice but now it looks to me like the boundaries have come down.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Thinking #Common #Kind

When we even use the term 'specialized world,' we already have a problem! We're making art; they are making art... these worlds are not far apart from each other. For instance, pieces of art that hang on a wall can be seen in museums or can be used in a variety of commercial ways. That art is everywhere, so the message is that it's a part of everyday life.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Art #Wall #Everyday

I know that my music is heard a lot in commercial circles. In academia, I think my music is taken in differently but I'm not sure why that is. Some kind of sixth sense tells me that people in that world are thinking differently about it. I don't know if it has to do with the structure of my music, which is probably more apparent to those in the academic world than it is in the commercial world, where people tend not to think of that aspect of music so much. They just listen for pure enjoyment.
-- Jennifer Higdon

#Taken #Thinking #People

Like most parents, I've been stumped by homework, the big questions, such as: 'What is the point of geography - the pilot always knows where we are going?'. Answer: 'If you didn't know any geography, people would think you were an American, and you wouldn't be able to put them right because you wouldn't know where they live.'

Once a leader delegates, he should show utmost confidence in the people he has entrusted.

We must see what in the Israeli identity - in the Israeli - we can give to other people rather than speaking so often of taking, expanding territory.

There are a lot of people who know me who can't understand for the life of them why I would got to work on something as unserious as baseball. If they only knew.

People who deal with life generously and large-heartedly go on multiplying relationships to the end.

The search is more important than the destination

Funerals are important rituals. They don't just recognize that a life has ended; they recognize that a life was lived.

Of course education becomes very very important and that's for our human resource development.

When you speak, speak the truth; perform when you promise; discharge your trust... Withhold your hands from striking, and from taking that which is unlawful and bad...

The question is not if the candidate's heart is favorable to Christianity, but if he has Christ as his starting point even for politics, and will speak out His name!