Instrumental Ensemble Quotes

The Quartets have been a major part of my work.

I think my first experience of art, or the joy in making art, was playing the horn at some high-school dance or bar mitzvah or wedding, looking at a roomful of people moving their bodies around in time to what I was doing. There was a piano player, a bass player, a drummer, and my breath making the melody.

I was in band all the way through high school, and I played in jazz competitions all across Iowa.

A symphony is a stage play with the parts written for instruments instead of for actors.

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 had different bands. I played with the Acoustic Warriors for the most part, without girl singers. It was the same kind of sound, acoustic guitar, bass, with violin and sometimes accordion, and the guys would sing, that kind of thing.

I went to this little performing arts school in downtown Phoenix. You had to dance or act, and everyone sang in choir. I started out playing the saxophone, but I always wanted to be in an orchestra. That was a dream as a kid, and there aren't a lot of saxophones in an orchestra.

Being in the high-school band was some of the funnest years of my life.

The fact that I'm a fifth of Punch Brothers... that's lucky for me because I feel like I get to operate in the context of one of the great string bands. There's just not another string band I would rather be in, and i'm just compelled to make music for and with string bands. It's what I know, and it's kind of like who I am.

In 'Boondien' I worked with a band where everyone had their own instrument to play.

To finally be able to actually play the piano with vocalists and actually do, like, a proper concert - that feels really good.

When I first wrote for orchestra, I didn't realize, when you have 20 people playing a violin line, that is very different than one person playing that line.

We decided to do some of Merle's things with modern instrumentation. We used a flute, a bass clarinet, a trumpet, a clarinet, drums, a guitar, vibes and a piano.

I have always been involved in my school's music program.

The 'Missa Mirabilis' is a big work which was conceived for a large organ and a lot of singers.

For Ryan's Daughter I used a total of eight harps, something that was, at least, weird.

I would love to have a go at a band or some form of music one day.

I played in the high school band. I was the one baritone saxophone out of 80 other people. No one could tell whether I was hittin' the right notes or the wrong notes.

At 10 years old, I was in my church band, playing in front of a couple thousand people every week.

When we started the band, it was a classical group.

Actually, when I was in elementary school, I saw a saxophone. A band came to my school, and I saw this guy get up and play this solo. And I said, 'Oh man, what is that! That must be fantastic!'

Most Beethoven symphonies require 80 or more instruments, and the late romantics even more.

The Third Quartet I made the instruments in pairs - Two different pairs - Violin and viola, and violin and cello. They played very different things from each other all through the whole piece.

I began like all composers, writing for small groups. Chamber groups.

And I saw the sax line-up that he had behind him and I thought, I'm going to learn the saxophone. When I grow up, I'm going to play in his band. So I sort of persuaded my dad to get me a kind of a plastic saxophone on the hire purchase plan.