Dave Brubeck Quotes

I was just going more for what I've always been influenced by, European music.

Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That's what classical music is, real European music.

Classical music has been based on works people love and come back to for aural comfort.

From the spiritual came the blues, gospel, and rhythm-and-blues. I heard all of that music growing up, and that has influenced how I approached classical music. I'm sure of it.

Music was around in my family in two ways. My mother would occasionally sing to me, but I was mostly stimulated by the classical music my father had left behind. I had an ear for music, I suppose, so that's what began my interest in music.

I love music, I love all kinds of music, particularly jazz. Jazz is an extension of America. There's no other country in the world that could have produced jazz.

When I hear that young people have come to the theater for the first time to listen to opera, I'm very happy. Because it's the same thing that happened to me as a child. When I first heard the tenor voice, I immediately fell in love with this kind of music.

My music was typically continental - nothing like, say, The Beatles.

Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.

My mother was into opera and my father was into jazz, so there was a lot of jazz in the house where I grew up.

Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music.

I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.

Whenever I visit a city, I like to see what classical music concerts are on offer.

I'd love to do 'Werther.' It's a great opera, and the music's so beautiful.

The tradition of classical music and the opera is such that it used to be the place where social intercourse could take place between all parts of society: politicians, industrialists, artists, citizens, etc. That tradition, I think, still exists, but it's much, much more diluted.

Music has an intrinsic value that touches Americans - they love their music, and want more.

I don't limit my taste. There's some jazz that I like and there's some opera. I've been listening to what was essentially country music, but it crossed over to rock.

Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.

I have a very strong identity that connects me to Argentina and to Latin America, but at the same time, I have a deep connection to the music from the United States and music from Europe, too.

I can remember dancing around living room with my two sisters to the music of Paganini and Mozart. I can still remember my dad combing the newspaper, circling all the free concerts in town, and on the weekends, we would go as a family.

All old music was modern once, and much more of the music of yesterday already sounds more old-fashioned than works which were written three centuries ago.

Great classic music that I've been turned on to has not only inspired and influenced me, but it has had an effect on my songwriting.

When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.

I love blues. My grandfather did blues.

I grew up with Ray Charles playing in the car all the time or playing in the house.