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Thomas Hampson

Thomas Hampson Quotes

Opera Singer

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“I have every iPod that's been made ˘ that's how sick I am. I carry anything and everything I possibly would want to listen to. I have a lot of jazz. I adore Ralph Towner, Leo Kottke. I've always been a big Oscar Peterson fan. I've branched out a little bit more in rock-and-roll, but that's maybe because I'm 50 years old and I can now listen to Steely Dan again without shame. I adore the Grateful Dead. Creedence Clearwater Revival. Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. All that's been fun to get back into. But I'm no longer interested in the Doobie Brothers.”

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“Every opera, because every opera is a unique slice of a particular perspective, historical perspective and psychological perspective if not musical style, and so forth, they all present different challenges. Some can be musically very challenging, some can be psychologically more challenging. There is always something that requires a pretty specific amount of energy and attention.”

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“When we look at the arts and letters in America, especially if we look at poetry, and poetry set to music, this dialogue, we have this very powerful beautiful, eclectic, diary, or narration of being in America, being American, participating in America, becoming more of America and also as an American, the American creative spirit, which is quite interesting. Our composers and poets have spent more time writing and thinking and speaking out of what it means to be a composer or poet as well as to be an American, or a composer or poet In America; both relationships.”

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“You would be surprised how many people that are very passionate about classical music are deeply involved in Hip Hop. You would think Jazz would be the natural associative, but it's extraordinary what kind of crossed-genre associations we are finding in digital media. And even as I'm talking about it, I find myself speaking very much more about how people are accessing that which, what I do, rather than me being preoccupied trying to market something that I do to them.”

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“Being a classical musician I'm fascinated with how my colleagues, not just singers, but every musician finds ways to express something else or something new or the same ol', same ol' in classical music. I'm always in dialogue with other musicians at least orally, if I can't be with them and a lot of dead musicians as well. I've learned a lot from dead people on recordings.”

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“I think one of the great things behind game theory, or game development, especially in education now, apropos, digital and new media, is finding a better, easier, more intuitive way to learn that takes that away from the drudge and the structured work part and puts it into the reflective, "I'm alive, I'm a human being, I'm not working right now," part. And I think that I would like to see music and arts and humanities become more able to even the color spectrum of the fan of activities.”

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“My only advice as an experience older singer is about singing, it isn't about music. To have a career in music is a completely different question and leads to other kinds of advice and other kind of experts. All you can do is someone planted in my mind very early on, this wonderful truism called, "Fortune favors the prepared mind." Be passionate about being a musician. There is no limit to how hard you must work and how detailed you must be in every facet of what you do, either as a singer, as a musician, or as a person.”

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“I think nervousness - a heightened sense of nerves and attention is a very healthy thing for a performer. It is an artificial environment that you are going into whether it's concert or recital, or stage. When I know something so well, I've done it so often, and you kind of walk out for Tuesday night's performance, or you feel like that, that makes me more nervous then being geared up. A little bit like race horses. In the same way that the horses are always difficult to get into that lineup, the worst time of my life is the 10 or 15 minutes before I go on stage.”

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“Once you go on stage you're essentially creating the world that people want to participate in. The worst thing you can do is go out on stage with the idea that you're going to communicate something you've learned and if you do it really well, they'll approve. If you go out in an approval process, you will be so nervous and so preoccupied you'll never get to the heart of what it is you want to make music with.”

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