Edward Albee, the premier dark playwright of the American theater, would show up at rehearsal and quote his favorite lines from 'Auntie Mame'. He would stand at the back of the theater, not facing the stage, and sort of conduct the music of his play.
I don't listen to a lot of new stuff. I just like the old stuff. It's all quite dramatic and atmospheric. You'd have an entire story in song. I never listen to, like, white music - I couldn't sing you a Zeppelin or Floyd song.
I like to be dramatic in my music because that's when it gets to your heart.
To me, Mozart is our Shakespeare, the one who wrote the most dramatic, psychologically most baffling music. He combined ideas that no one else would have thought of putting together.
The opening solo on 'Once in Royal David's City' is still the most dramatic radio moment of the year.
My father used to say it was just there, the opportunity. It was all teed up for him. The talkies were starting, and here was Hollywood waiting for people to come from New York who had the training, who could do music with a sense of dramatic context.
Listening to Evanescence makes me want to break up with a girl in real time as a giant antique hourglass falls to the floor in slow motion.
I, in middle school, started really, really liking country music because it tells a story. It's really dramatic; I'm really dramatic. There's a lot of emotion. It was like, 'This is a perfect fit,' and I was teased mercilessly for it.
What I'm trying to do is find either existing properties or come up with properties or angles or stories which will create music drama. It's my obsession and most of all I would like to remain working in theatre. I think it's very much alive.
The radio station was playing Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, a sure sign that things were much worse than they appeared.
I started out writing music for theatre and contemporary dance, so there has always been a dramatic and narrative element in my music.
I grew up listening to Queen. They were no stranger to throwing in the unexpected and something a little more dramatic.
My greatest experiences in the theatre and the most religious experiences in my life - of which going to the opera is one for me - have been with the Romantic composers' repertoire: it's Wagner, it's Strauss, Verdi, Puccini. That era gets me every time.
My songwriting is so influenced by orchestrated music, dramatic, super glam rock-y stuff. Two of my biggest influences in songwriting were Elton John and Freddie Mercury.
I love huge dramatic songs with ridiculously big orchestral parts.
As a kid, I had a Beatles poster and a Bela Lugosi as Dracula poster, so both worlds always appealed to me. Horror allows you to do things as a composer than you're able to do in no other style of movie. The music has to be aggressive. You can't tiptoe around. It has to be incredibly focused dramatically - no time for second thoughts.
