But somehow, I felt no inclination to be interested in it in any amateur way, let alone professional, until suddenly I became interested. And the first thing I did was to compose: not play an instrument, but to compose. — 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
So this anchoring in some way, in some important way in the past without repeating the past, but on the basis of the past… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
Because I have sixty years of being a professional composer, conductor, musician, whatever, and you develop a lot of friendships and you get involved… — Gunther Schuller Copy Share Image
