Brian Tyree Henry Quotes

My son is a musician who next year will be attending the LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in New York City, which his mother helped him get into by making him practice all the time.

I was in show choir in high school.

In high school, my first thing ever was I played Tony in 'West Side Story' when I was about 17. I was a really shy kid, and I just, like, forced myself to learn how to sing this one month because I loved 'West Side Story' so much, and I somehow managed to get the role.

I played trumpet for about two weeks. Sixth grade. And I didn't practice. Maybe a little longer than two weeks, but I didn't practice and I was faking it.

The first time I sang in front of an audience, I was about 14 - it was at my guitar school's showcase, and there were about 30 people there. I was so nervous, but I did it.

When I was four, we had to choose a musical instrument to play at school, and I chose the cello. I played until I was 18, and although I found it nerve-racking to play solo, I loved playing in an orchestra. When I left school I didn't carry on with it, which I regret.

You don't have to feel confident to act confident. In fact, it's the most important acting job you can learn.

My degree was in opera.

It was clear to my parents that I had the gift of voice, and they encouraged me to pursue it.

I did the marching band all throughout junior high and high school. Music was one of my favorite things in school.

I am not a Ph.D. in economics or a doctorate in literature that I can afford to take my singing lightly. Even if I sing a jingle, I take it as seriously as oxygen.

I did a show back when I was in high school - so I was about 17 - and it was the first time I was on stage. I never even thought about being an actor before that, but after that experience, I knew it was what I wanted to do.

I wouldn't even dare to sing like Ed Sheeran.

I never had vocal lessons, dance classes, or any of the things my peers had.

I was in a show choir. I can't sing or dance to save my life, but I was very passionate. People said my parents paid the choir director to let me in. It was actually the parents who started that one!

I studied dance at a high school arts magnet program before moving on to Miami's New World School of the Arts, and from there, I went on to study at The Juilliard School.

I was always in love with music, but my parents never really saw that I had talent, and it was really just by chance that I made it into the Menuhin School, and from then on my life changed. And that was when I realized, OK, this is what I want to do. But, until then, it was really just a passion, a hobby.

I love dancing, but I'm not that good of a singer. I sang in punk rock bands in high school and college and stuff, but that mostly involved lots of screaming.

My mother wanted me to be a concert pianist.

I always wrote music for my friends, but my focus was on playing piano. I didn't think I'd be quite good enough to be a soloist, but I believed that if I worked hard enough, I could work as a player, a teacher.

I knew nothing of the real life of a musician, but I seemed to see myself standing in front of great crowds of people, playing my accordion.

I was a musical theater kid in high school.

I always wanted to be a singer - my whole life, all I ever did was sing around the house.

I used to write three- and four-part harmonies for my YWCA club in high school. We used to win all the song contests. But people would say, 'Look who her father is. He probably did the whole thing.'

When I was in a band after high school and in college, I didn't even play the guitar. I played the bass because I couldn't play lead, and I didn't have the gear.