"The violin is my voice. When you have so much to say what it comes down to it is are you transporting yourself and the audience with what you have to say through your music."
"I did resonate with how his family labeled him a peculiar kid. I experienced that growing up, not from my family, but the neighborhood."
"A singer goes through so much; they have such a big job to do. And I respect what they go through. I can't do it. Yet there are things that the pianist does which is equally impressive and important for me."
"I feel that every day I pick up the instrument is an opportunity to reinvent myself better, better in the image of the instrument, which will always be better than me, better in the image of the composer's living or recently dead or long dead, who are often also humbling figures in in one's psyche."
"I thought that fame was important. I thought having a house was important. That to have a car was important, not for material purposes, but for the purpose of feeling like you've achieved something...now my wants have to do more with kindness"
San Francisco Symphony
October 1st - October 2nd
October 1st - October 2nd
"Early on we decided we didn't want to be soap-boxy and so we wanted to kind of enter into a space that allowed for allegory and some sense of magic or something that almost like Aesop's fable."
"I really enjoy getting to know people and places and operas and productions that differ from each other because it makes me feel like my life is richer."
A great way to become familiar with a composer's work is to perform it. Zachary Gordin, the General Director of Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, is intimately familiar with the work of composer Jake Heggie. Arguably Heggie's best-known work...
"I think it was the start of me becoming more interested in works that had explicit theatrical elements and a legible kind of quasi-narrative element. And it was really a chance for me to really see how versatile I could be as a performer."