David Del Tredici Quotes

United States, Composer
March 16, 1937

David Del Tredici is an American composer. He has won a Pulitzer Prize in Music and is a former Guggenheim and Woodrow Wilson fellow. Del Tredici is considered a pioneer of the Neo-Romantic movement. He has also been described by the Los Angeles Times as "one of our most flamboyant outsider composers".

I began like all composers, writing for small groups. Chamber groups.

David Del Tredici
- Writing
- Small
Composers love to write for symphony orchestras because the symphony is the Rolls Royce of musical instruments.

David Del Tredici

I've always been a composer dependent on texts.

David Del Tredici
Well, American composers are the best composers. At this time in the world, we are where the energy is. We are the most diverse, the most iconoclastic, the most maverick, and the most skillful.

David Del Tredici
- Time
- World
- American
When I first wrote for orchestra, I didn't realize, when you have 20 people playing a violin line, that is very different than one person playing that line.

David Del Tredici
- People
- Different
A maverick feels like he has no choice however difficult his choice of expression. In my case, it was going backwards into tonality. It seemed so wrong. The idea that progress is going into the past in a new way is very strange, even though there are precedents.

David Del Tredici
- Past
- Progress