John Corigliano Quotes

• You become a great composer when you win a Pulitzer. But I think that now it’s a completely meaningless award.

  John Corigliano

• What I think of as style – and I’ve gotten to this over years of really thinking about it – is that style is the unconscious choices I make.

  John Corigliano

• The structural thinking I use in the concert hall is unnecessary to most film projects, and most film composers make better use of the enormous range of pop and other materials and techniques required of them than I probably would, faced with the same challenge.

  John Corigliano

• The French Revolution is the ultimate modernist statement. Destroy everything. Don’t build on the past. There is no past.

  John Corigliano

• Jazz is not the popular culture. Jazz is in the same position in our culture as classical music. A very small minority of people really love it.

  John Corigliano

• I’m glad I won it because when I grew up the Pulitzer was the award that every composer wanted and I was like that too.

  John Corigliano

• I think it’s good for the composer to teach because you always have new students and you have to begin at the beginning and make things clear.

  John Corigliano

• I think art can reflect tragedy.

  John Corigliano

• I have tremendous respect for film composers.

  John Corigliano

• I find respect for a mediocre British composer, as opposed to a really good American, ridiculous because they automatically respect a composer if he’s from England.

  John Corigliano

• I don’t think that the Pulitzer should be given the way it is. I think the competition should be anonymous. I think completely different people would win it if the names were taken off because a lot of it is done on relationships and names.

  John Corigliano

• I always conceive a piece as a different set of challenges.

  John Corigliano

• Eighty percent of my pieces gravitate towards an A, as a tonal thing, not at the beginning, but somewhere in it.

  John Corigliano

• Art is not only about angst.

  John Corigliano

John Corigliano (14)

Birth:	16th February, 1938
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Composer

About

John Paul Corigliano was born in New York City, New York, USA. He is an American composer of classical music. He earned a BA degree in composition from Columbia University in 1959. He also studied at Manhattan School of Music. He studied with Otto Luening, Vittorio Giannini, and Paul Creston. His most distinguished works include his Clarinet Concerto, Symphony No. 1, The Ghosts of Versailles, Symphony No. 2 for string orchestra, Mr. Tambourine Man: Seven Poems of Bob Dylan, and his score for the film The Red Violin. He received many awards, including Grawemeyer Award for Symphony No. 1, Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for Symphony No. 1, Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for String Quartet, Academy Award for Original Music Score for The Red Violin, Pulitzer Prize for Music for Symphony No. 2, Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition for Mr. Tambourine Man, Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Performance for Mr. Tambourine Man, and Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo for Conjurer.

Related Authors

• Johann Nepomuk Hummel
• Ornette Coleman
• Paul Desmond
• André Previn
• Sandy Wilson
• Esperanza Spalding
• Les Brown
• George Michael Cohan
• Phil Ochs
• Brian Jones

Advertisement

Today's Anniversary - 17th January

Births

• 1937 - Alain Badiou
• 1933 - Shari Lewis
• 1935 - Ruth Ann Minner
• 1886 - Ronald Firbank
• 1931 - Don Zimmer

Deaths

• 1941 - Thomas R. Kelly
• 1893 - Rutherford B. Hayes
• 1961 - Ty Cobb
• 1996 - Barbara Jordan
• 2005 - Zhao Ziyang