James Newton Howard Quotes

Bernard Herrmann used to write all his scores by himself. So did Bach, Beethoven and Stravinsky. I don't understand why this happens in the movie industry.

I hated Matthew Bourne's 'Swan Lake' when it first turned up, and then when it was televised, and then when it returned.

We are not the originators of the story. I think it's actually the opposite when you're an actor. You're telling somebody else's story.

If you're going to make a musical, don't cartoon it from the play. Make it better than the play. Have a reason for making it sing.

With a musical, you kind of have to do a mind-meld with the book-writer, the lyricist, the composer, the director - sometimes the producer. I think that's a reason why musicals are the hardest form.

The story of 'Libra Scale,' the storyline was created first, and then the music was created around the story line.

It's writing songs within the structure of telling a story, so it becomes a platform for diverse songwriting, for a writing process that's broader than just figuring out a song. You're also dealing with always pushing the story forward, with casting the voices, with the orchestration, with the arrangements.

Isn't composing music akin to film direction?

My films are based on themes, so I always go for theme tracks and background score.

A musical is really one of the most complicated beasts. It's a play, and there's music... and there's dancing... it's unbelievably satisfying to get something up out of your brain onto a piece of paper ... and start the process and then see it on the stage.

Start with the titles, and then build the music that goes with them.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Bikey. Yes, that's got a nice ring to it.

I have learned a great deal from the theatrical side of Covent Garden. The Paris Opera Ballet is more concerned with technique. It's perfect. It's beautiful. It's well done. But it lacks the theatrical tradition that is so important in England. At the Royal Ballet, absolutely everyone on stage seems to be caught up in the plot.

I would have loved to work with Cranko. I love stories. Even though I like a lot of style - Forsythe, Maliphant - I have this childish side that likes stories.

We really like having songs where we think the arrangement is just as important as the melodies, even though they're typically not.

I want to write orchestral music. I want to get a group of singers together and sing William Byrd songs.

Music is one of the last elements in the creative process. It can and hopefully should tie a bow around an artistic concept, how a story moves forward, the pace of that storytelling.

The colors of 'The Nutcracker' ballet score have become a part of the vocabulary of film music. It's where so much of the 19th-century romantic music that I call upon as a film composer is rooted.

When I'm writing film music, I feel like I'm more a filmmaker than a composer. It's more about what the film needs. I'm basically part of the team that's creating a film, and the music is a very important part, but it's just one part of many.

When I was composing for 'The Villain,' I looked at it as a fan and came up with tunes accordingly.

It's really fun to get into that process of creating an album and telling a story. I really love it.

If you're a film composer, you have the music tell the story of the character.

The think that we hung the film version all on was 'Hedwig' on tour. On stage, it's one theatre, one show. It just seemed natural to change it. In the film, we were able to go to flashback rather than have her talk to the audience. And we had the play to practice and to see where we had made mistakes.

I've always looked at guys who I've admired, like John Williams and Lalo Schifrin and Max Steiner, and looked at the choices they made and always try to take a cue from that.

When I compose for any film, I always work with the story in mind.