Lukas Foss Quotes
It is obvious that anything a scientist discovers or invents is based on previous discoveries and inventions. The same applies to the arts.
Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique.
Most people think an artist tries to be original, but originality is the last thing that develops in the artist.
It is the element I miss in electronic music - no performance, no loving immersion. Maybe that is why I was never particularly drawn to electronic music.
Great music does not just make me feel good. It means something. It makes us understand. It makes us happy.
I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed, in other words: how the artist made it his own.
Since age seven, I've been composing and have never stopped composing, yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been.
There is another interesting paradox here: by immersing ourselves in what we love, we find ourselves. We do not lose ourselves. One does not lose one's identity by falling in love.
The fact that Stravinsky used the classics as a major influence is obvious. What is interesting is how he used them, how he turned Bach into Stravinsky.
When I went back to visit my native Berlin after World War II, I noticed that the only thing I really remembered from my childhood Berlin days is the shoe store.
In the nineteenth century the more grandiose word inspiration began to replace the word idea in the arts.
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.
Mozart wrote so many works in his thirty-five years that it would take a lifetime just to write out the notes. We literally do not know how he did it.
The creative act is like writing a letter. A letter is a project; you don't sit down to write a letter unless you know what you want to say and to whom you want to say it.
To come to grips with creativity, I must ask creative, adventurous questions - the kind which, in all likelihood, cannot be answered.
I don't dare postulate about science, but I know that it takes both emotion and intellect in order for art to happen.
I still do not know where the notes will come from when I accept a commission for a new work.
If one uses music that one does not really love, then one will not succeed in making it one's own.
Most artists have experienced the creative block. We get stuck in our work. We beat our head against the wall: nothing. Sometimes, it is because we are trying something at the wrong time.
Yes, influences are enriching, and they can be found in every work of art, even the most original.
The best way to investigate the elusive phenomenon called the creative process may well be to target all the misconceptions, to explain what the creative process is not.
My students frequently ask what their next project should be. My advice: immerse yourself in the music you love and you will find what you want to do; you will discover your next project.