Quotes by Carlisle Floyd

About Carlisle Floyd:

Carlisle Floyd is an American opera composer. The son of a Methodist minister, he has based many of his works on themes from the South. His best known opera, Susannah (1955), is based on a story from the Apocrypha, transferred to contemporary, rural Tennessee, and is set in a Southern dialect.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

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

You can't possibly predict what will last or not. But once you attempt to write for the ages, you're doomed.

Carlisle Floyd

I was interested in what was really going on in Salem at that time, and I resolved to investigate this seemingly unorthodox treatment of the people and the period.

Carlisle Floyd

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

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

The story of Willie Stark fascinated me because it was tackling the story of a man who outwardly has all the success one could possibly want and who is destroyed by his personal demons.

Carlisle Floyd

I found a certain kind of music congenial to me; it never occurred to me to write music that was academically acceptable.

Carlisle Floyd

I've never set out consciously to write American music. I don't know what that would be unless the obvious Appalachian folk references.

Carlisle Floyd

There's the Bacon society, which is fostered by his fourth wife Helen Bacon, but I don't know what kind of performances his music gets. He wrote symphonic music and some chorale music.

Carlisle Floyd

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

Author Bio

  • NameCarlisle Floyd
  • DescriptionAmerican composer
  • BornJune 11, 1926
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionComposer
  • AwardsGuggenheim Fellowship; National Medal Of Arts; Charles E. Lutton Man Of Music Award