Brian Ferneyhough Quotes

There's no performance where I never have to think about setting up a phrase or making a technical adjustment while I'm performing.

Being a musician, there aren't that many ways for me to consciously use a more strategy, math-based part of my brain.

Whenever I start to really think about what I'm playing, I may play it better musically, but the feeling isn't there.

We have different personalities, but in a harmonious way, I'd say. Anyway, we were booked to play at the festival as a duo; and we decided we wouldn't have any rehearsal.

Notes are tricky in an audition, because I find, more often than not, my instinct is right.

I think audiences sometimes mistakenly assume a quality performance comes from some great emotional disturbance rather than really intense concentration. Concentration and flow is what it's all about.

There are some people, by the way, that associate a certain amount of visualization with the performance of music. Those are people that really are not centrally concerned only with music, the traditional things.

That is the artistic task: To choose the best from these solutions.

The beauty of it is when you can just show up and hit the notes.

It's been very exciting for me to start directing and conducting, exploring the symphonic repertoire, which I've always loved.

I do love to sing. Had I a longer set of thigh bones and a sweeter voice, I should have loved to be a performer.

I'll tell you what I love about directing: the surprise. You never know what's going to happen with your piece until an audience weighs in.

Getting all dressed up and putting on fancy clothes - all of that's a great thing, but oddly, it doesn't really have a lot to do with acting most of the time.

The art of interpretation is not to play what is written.

Opera is musical theatre, and the music can teach you so much about the theatre. Very often I use musical terms to think about how I comport myself on stage: I employ 'rubati,' 'ostinati,' 'cadenze.' Finding these parallels is very fascinating for me.

I love performing. I love getting out there. It's kind of like why I make music.

One bites into the brass mouthpiece of his wooden cudgel, and the other blows his cheeks out on a French horn. Do you call that Art?

Back then, I was an acoustically-oriented artist. Honestly, 'Poetry Man' wouldn't have been my first choice.

It is not a mystical thing, however, it is obvious and practical and I think that what the performer does is to try to get to that point with every choice you make from the phrasing in a tune to the choice of tunes.

Music is supposed to be inspired.

We're not one of those bands that throws the names of all their songs in a hat and pulls them out right before they go on stage.

I'm not a pop singer; I'm not a jazz singer. And I know I sing like not a whole lot of people do; I also know that a lot of other people act like I do. And better than I do. But what informs the singing is the acting. They're not separate from each other.

I think the best thing you can do for an audition is to just do your work, be creative. It's OK to be spontaneous.

If I can't do an opera as well as most people, I won't do it at all. I don't want to touch Wagner because I think a lot of people do it a hell of a lot better than I could. I do the operas I think I can do, know something about.

But I like the process of putting a show together and the impact that Edinburgh has on me as a performer.