Quotes by Charles Hazlewood

About Charles Hazlewood:

Charles Matthew Egerton Hazlewood is a British conductor and advocate for broadening access to orchestral music. Renowned for his widespread presence across the BBC, he conducts orchestras around the world, making his debut with the Royal Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in London. Hazlewood lives on a farm in Somerset from where he hosts his own music festival "Orchestra in a Field".
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 way Fatboy Slim layers motifs is the same as 18th-century baroque counterpoint. You have an idea, then you have an answer to the idea in another voice, then you have a counter idea accompanying the original idea, and you build up your texture lik...

Charles Hazlewood

I'm a bit of a Luddite, really: I don't use email much, as I started drowning in it. So I said 'screw this' and dumped my laptop, though I've begun to re-engage with it.

Charles Hazlewood

I want to prove that Holst's 'The Planets' can be as much of a sensory overload as a concert by the Grateful Dead, and just as exciting.

Charles Hazlewood

I most definitely would not buy the 'Daily Mail,' which pours a kind of livid torpor into the eyelids of the average Brit - I skimmed through a copy recently and couldn't believe the rubbish in it.

Charles Hazlewood

Even if you're playing the most well-known repertoire under the sun, I still believe you have a responsibility as an artist to tell the audience why you're playing it, what are the key aspects to it, and then throw in a bit about its historical conte...

Charles Hazlewood

In America, they have this nauseating habit of calling the conductor 'maestro'. I always slightly gag when the cor anglais player goes, 'Maestro, can I discuss bar 19 with you?'

Charles Hazlewood

Somerset is the first proper country county you come to in the West, which isn't dependent on London and isn't full of commuters. Somerset is full of the most fantastically interesting people.

Charles Hazlewood

Parallels between classical and pop are not new. The whole San Francisco movement of John Cage and Terry Riley went hand in glove with what the Velvet Underground were doing.

Charles Hazlewood

Musical 'fusion' projects have earned themselves a bad name, but that's mainly because they often involve pop artists conscripting orchestras to play unimaginative backdrops to their acts. What's really exciting is when you spark off a dialogue betwe...

Charles Hazlewood

There's always blood on the carpet when I play Beethoven at the piano. I hate playing the piano! And it's so hard to fight for Beethoven's soul! But that's what I have to do!

Charles Hazlewood

When I was young, Tchaikovsky was ruined for me by conductors who made it slick and treacly. Hearing Valery Gergiev conduct Tchaikovsky has been a revelation - he brings out all its raw passion. And Gergiev with the super-virtuoso LSO - well, it's ju...

Charles Hazlewood

I abhor the words 'classical music.' Few things satisfy me more than a really good cover version.

Charles Hazlewood

For too long, musicians have been the greatest enemy of music. Their lack of desire to proselytize is a kind of betrayal.

Charles Hazlewood

Music is a lens through which to see who we are. Every phrase of every piece of music is trying to tell a story.

Charles Hazlewood

When I analyse the music, I can get really extreme.

Charles Hazlewood

For anyone who doesn't have that connection with Mozart, I urge those people to go and find some of his music, because it can quite genuinely make you just glad to be alive.

Charles Hazlewood

Classical music has become rarefied, like a maiden aunt that nobody wants to talk to.

Charles Hazlewood

A hundred years ago, concerts were far more come-what-may - people played cards, drank beer and appreciated the music. If we go some way towards restoring that spirit, I'll be happy.

Charles Hazlewood

I think most people's record collections are more interesting than radio generally gives them credit for. You're likely to be as interested in the Grateful Dead as Palestrina. It pisses me off how compartmentalised music is. I used to be in a punk ba...

Charles Hazlewood

I admire Tom Ades: he's a brilliant conductor, and he gets just the right hard, brilliant sound from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for Russian music.

Charles Hazlewood

Purcell is a composer who had a formative influence on British music - even The Who now cite him as an influence. There's an intense, dirty harmony, but there's a Louis XIV kind of elan and style, too. He had the melancholy DNA of our national folk h...

Charles Hazlewood

Author Bio

  • NameCharles Hazlewood
  • DescriptionBritish conductor
  • BornNovember 14, 1966
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionConductor