Philosophy

"When the last bell has tolled the Twentieth Century, the Distinguished Service Cross shall flap proudly from the breast of Scientific Achievement. By unanimous acclaim the Purple Heart will go to creative art. With bewilderment we shall regard the only century in history man and his art were thoroughly misunderstood."

- From Decline of a revolution by design (1966)


"Humanity is a deep well. The artist throws a pebble into the well. Despairingly he turns when, suddenly, he hears a splash. So our artists in the creation of a culture search for a response in the deep well of the American People."

- From American Culture: an Immaculate Deception (1966)


"I write for a living audience, for a living stage."

- From Interview with Michael Barone


Art can only exist among people for whom it is deliberately intended. The moral in Art is that it is without morality -- an expression of any given period. The artist who understands this will equally be understood by the people who listen to his music: for it is not an expression of himself but an image of what we are."

- From Pandora's Music Box: Estrangement between Public and Contemporary Music (1966)


"The only difference between a bum and a composer is a composer's a bum with talent."

- From Interview with Michael Barone


"Music today has to have the quality of intensity. Today people think in swift and tense ways."

- From Interview before "Helios Kenetic"


"The thing we must learn in America is that music is an art. It's a serious art. It's not just serious because I say so, it's serious because it affects our own wellbeing."

- From Interview before "Helios Kenetic"


"No matter when your formal education begins, the most important thing a creative artist can do is to come in touch with life in order to write about it."

- From Interview on WNYC Radio before "Holofernes Overture"


"I can only write when I'm possessed with an idea which I can no more shake than a man who is possessed with the lust for a woman. It is a physical, an organic, a human factor."

- From Interview with Michael Barone

 


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