Anton Rubinstein Quotes

I can take any series of numbers and turn it into music, from Bach to bebop, Herbie Hancock to hip-hop.

In the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra we play such a diversity of music, with 10 arrangers in the band, we don't really worry about whether it's contemporary or not.

I've always had a close connection to both rock and classical music.

What is music about? You can't listen to one era, one composer, and know what music is about.

Music is music; you don't have to put a label on it.

When you hear Bach or Mozart, you hear perfection. Remember that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were great improvisers. I can hear that in their music.

I can think and play stuff in classical music that possibly violinists who didn't have access to other types of music could never do. It means I'm more flexible within classical music, to be a servant to the composer.

I love... different kinds of music. I like classical music and pop music. I like alternative, and I like rap, hip-hop, and I kind of collected all these things that I love, and they infused my sensibilities, and I just wanted to sing because it felt like it needed to come out of me.

When I was younger I didn't really know what genre of music I'd want to do because I'd always done so many different types, so many impressions.

Taxi drivers used to ask me what kind of music I did, and I'd say, 'Well, it's kind of jazz, soul, classical' - but that makes no sense to anyone.

The development of new instrumental and vocal idioms has been one of the remarkable phenomena of recent music.

I am certain that most composers today would consider today's music to be rich, not to say confusing, in its enormous diversity of styles, technical procedures, and systems of esthetics.

A name doesn't make the music. It's just called that to differentiate it from other types of music.

New music is absolutely integral to classical music.

People are always defining and re-defining music. My style of playing has been characterized as smooth jazz and acid jazz. I listen as I play; I'm not caught up in defining the type of music I play.

There's no field of music which doesn't have good ideas.

I don't ever consciously change gears when I play jazz or classical. It's all music.

I don't think there's such a difference between older and newer music as there is between one composer and another.

I don't try to make the guitar sound like the harpsichord or lute. That makes you end up being like a bad copy.

My father was a classical pianist, and my mother was a singer of just about everything.

I've got a collection of songs that I've had, I keep adding to and they're all great American composers. I wanted to showcase American composers and I've done that on a lot of my records and played things by American composers that I really respect.

Writing tonal music now, you are not writing into the 19th Century.

Aaron Copland was a man that had a very specific point of view about what music should be which was that, he felt that new music should have the composer should show a personality in his music.

We were playing popular music, but we were doing our own arrangements because we were too lazy to sit down and figure out the originals.

I think there is great interest amongst the younger people in this music. I think that there is a lot of them that are looking for interesting situations and music that is stimulating.