That was more or less coincidental in the sense that my parents wanted me to come back to New York because that's the center of musical activity still to this day, more or less, and so I auditioned for the… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
I wanted to be a painter and an artist. And it's interesting that in some of my later musical works, I refer so often… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
I don't hate work, composing is not work for me, it's my pleasure; it's my life. So why should I stop? If something is… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
Symphony musicians are not trained in improvising, certainly not in a jazz style. — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
So now, thirty years, forty years later, I mean, I could find a whole orchestra of a thousand to put these things together in… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
My whole childhood was filled with classical music and going to concerts of the New York Philharmonic and other New York ensembles and organizations,… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
Many people think of me as a modernist, as a radical in music, you know, someone who's always sort of at the avant-garde of… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
After the war, once the bop revolution had taken hold, there were all kinds of young musicians, talented young musicians, who were ready for… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
I would like to read some books: I don't have time; I would like to continue working on my autobiography. — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
My primary calling, I always knew since the age of 11, was as a composer, and so that had to take priority. — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
His musical inspiration operates in a world uncluttered by conventional bar lines, conventional chord changes, and conventional ways of blowing or fingering a saxophone.… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
You know, I'm not gonna take my money with me to heaven or hell, wherever I'm going. So I want to do something good… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
