Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American composer Robert Ashley.
Last updated on November 18, 2024.
Robert Reynolds Ashley was an American composer, who was best known for his television operas and other theatrical works, many of which incorporate electronics and extended techniques. His works often involve intertwining narratives and take a surreal multidisciplinary approach to sound, theatrics and writing, and have been continuously performed by various interpreters during and after his life, including Automatic Writing (1979) and Perfect Lives (1983).
Opera on television in Europe is very important. If you think about it in the broadest sense: a lot of the dramas made in India with music are practically operas. They're not sung but they have a very big appeal. I don't know why American television people are so stupid but at the moment, they just seem to have some sort of a block. They just do what they do and they do it for a certain number of years. Then it wears out and they try something else. It's just a matter of time I think.
I like to talk about America. It's so mysterious.
I was interested in opera and it seemed to me that the only possible theatre for contemporary opera would be television. So I started working towards a kind of television kind of opera.
Do not rely on unplanned music; it comes out as though it were planned, but planned by someone you cross the street to avoid.
If a piece of music is under three minutes long, it's rock. Over three minutes, it's classical.