“We're living in a time when pretty much anything can happen in the music world. There are a lot of musical languages in which people work. When I think of common practice I think back to the time I was studying the flute, where I learned that in the Baroque period many things were not notated, since they were understood - that was because of common practice.” PeopleThinkingWorldLanguageCommonStudyMusicalAnything Can HappenBaroque Author:Jennifer Higdon
“As a consequence, I think of the idea of 'common practice' at any time as something that can only be seen by looking backwards. Maybe around the turn of the 20th century there might have been some kind of common practice but now it looks to me like the boundaries have come down.” ThinkingKindCommonConsequenceBoundariesLooking BackBackwards20th Century Author:Jennifer Higdon
“When anyone is creating anything, it has no choice but to be in that stream. The art I create and the art my colleagues create is part of it. But the question is: how long will it last in the stream? I think of it really as an enormous river, with its shores very distant from each other, and only time will tell what's going to last in the end. It seems to me that all music of our time is connected, but I never think about where I am in the river or how I would be placed by others inside of it.” ThinkingLongArtChoices Author:Jennifer Higdon
“My pieces usually are programmed on concerts in which the other works are standard repertoire. My music always sounds very different when it's on a concert of all contemporary music. It always seems to stick out at an odd angle. This also makes me think of a question I sometimes debate with my friends: does the music of a composer directly reflect that composer's personality? This is a difficult one, but I think it usually does.” ThinkingDifferentSometimesDifficultPersonalityDebateOddComposer Author:Jennifer Higdon
“You don't need any specialized education and you don't need to know anything about the world in which I work. I think my music should be able to speak to you even if you've never been to a concert of classical music before.” ThinkingWorldSpeakMusic IsClassical Music Author:Jennifer Higdon
“I know that my music is heard a lot in commercial circles. In academia, I think my music is taken in differently but I'm not sure why that is. Some kind of sixth sense tells me that people in that world are thinking differently about it. I don't know if it has to do with the structure of my music, which is probably more apparent to those in the academic world than it is in the commercial world, where people tend not to think of that aspect of music so much. They just listen for pure enjoyment.” PeopleThinkingWorldKindTakenMusic IsNot SureEnjoymentAcademicJust ListenSixth Sense Author:Jennifer Higdon
