Alan Hovhaness Quotes

I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn`t know anything about it.

This is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of... well, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me.

I did all kinds of things in order to earn a living.

Also, many very good records of contemporary music have been allowed to disappear. They don`t recut them even when they are successful.

There were periods when I sometimes made fires in a large, open fireplace that lasted about two weeks, which was how long it took to burn my compositions. So there has been an awful lot that I have destroyed.

I was born in Somerville, but I don`t remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood.

There are certain composers I have always admired very much, but I have always admired nature mostly and the music of the Orient.

I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.

I`ve always regarded nature as the clothing of God.

There is nothing like practice.

I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.

I had been composing but I didn`t know I was. When I realized that this was what I had been doing, I began to take it seriously.

In back of the house where I was born there was an attic and from there you could see a poorhouse. I remember that very clearly.

No, no, I didn`t know him. He lost his mind around 1917 because of the tragedy of the Armenians.

It`s hard for me to think of others because I`m not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century.

My mother`s background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland.