You can’t possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you’re doomed. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
What is American music? The most satisfying answer I’ve come across is that it was a kind of natural comfort with the vernacular which is diverse and regional; it’s not one particular set of sounds. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
We think the Puritans always dressed in black and white, which they didn’t. They loved very bright colors. And there were other differences in perceptions that gave one a very different view of them. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
We don’t have access to a national forum that we had in those days, through the news magazines which were the television news of the time. It’s very disturbing to me that we’ve sort of been pushed to the corners. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
The performances of my works in the last 10 years are probably equal to all the previous years put together. There are so many venues now and there is a completely new public for opera that’s grown up outside of the traditional core opera public. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
Socially I never was an outsider. I have never thought of the conflict element before frankly, but perhaps it was wanting to belong, and at the same time wanting to retain one’s own personality. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
I had all the normal interests – I played basketball and I headed the school paper. But I also developed very early a great love for music and literature and the theater. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
It’s necessary to track characters all the way through an opera. If you’re dealing with more than one or two characters, it’s very easy to forget that the others have lives of their own that feed into the story. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote
It’s amazing how fast generations lose sight of other generations. One of the first things the young composers who come to work with me say is that they want to write music people will like, instead of gaining their credentials by being rejected by the audience. Carlisle Floyd Read Quote