Conservatory Quotes & Sayings

OSWALD: Is it very late, mother?
MRS. ALVING: It is early morning. [She looks out through the conservatory.] The day is dawning over the mountains. And the weather is clearing, Oswald. In a little while you shall see the sun.
OSWALD: I'm glad of that. Oh, I may still have much to rejoice in and live for-- — Henrik Ibsen

Then the house had been boldly planned with a ball-room, so that, instead of squeezing through a narrow passage to get to it (as at the Chiverses') one marched solemnly down a vista of enfiladed drawing-rooms (the sea-green, the crimson and the bouton d'or), seeing from afar the many-candled lustres reflected in the polished parquetry, and beyond that the depths of a conservatory where camellias and tree-ferns arched their costly foliage over seats of black and gold bamboo. — Edith Wharton

In graduate school, Aubrey Berg at the Cincinnati Conservatory gave me the chance to perform with the best in the country in Broadway caliber productions. — Aaron Lazar

Literally, walking down that path. I was walking to work and I passed by A.C.T. (American Conservatory Theater) in San Francisco, and they had night education classes for adults. I said, "Yeah, why not?," and walked in, just for the fun of it, to see what it was like. — Tim Kang

The operas that I do are more in the operetta world, but I've gotten to do them in all of these major opera companies so it's been really wild. And I feel comfortable in that world because I went Cincinnati Conservatory and I hung out with all those kinds of people, I love hanging out with them and I understand them and their "diva-osity." — Jason Graae

It's Major Ketchup in the bathroom with the laser scalpel."
"Hmm." He sliced a delicately herbed spear of asparagus. "Obviously we were meant for each other as I can interpret that as you meaning something more like Colonel Mustard in the conservatory with the candlestick. — J.D. Robb

Because I had been in conservatory for so long, I was jealous of my friends in bands. — Nico Muhly

I ended up turning down a full scholarship of music at the conservatory to pay to go to cooking school. — Emeril Lagasse

I went to the Conservatory of Music in school in Rome. — Cecilia Bartoli

I started playing the piano when I was about two and got a scholarship to the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore when I was five. But I left when I was 11. — Tori Amos

When I composed, I heard my music played by the orchestra within days of completion of the score. No master at a conservatory, no matter how revered, can teach as much by verbal criticism as can a cold and analytical hearing of one's own music being played. — Andre Previn

Monsieur Lerebour was short, round and jovial, with the joviality of a shopkeeper who liked to do himself well. His wife, who was thin, self-willed and perpetually discontented, had still not succeeded in overcoming her husband's good humour. — Guy De Maupassant

I worked in theater my whole life. My mom was a drama teacher at my middle school. In high school, I was Drama Club President every year, and then I auditioned for conservatory acting programs. — Jenn Proske

Lincoln quickly looked up from the floor. His mother was already looking down at him like she'd just confronted him with damning criminal evidence. Like it was clear he'd done it with the candlestick in the conservatory, and she had the candlestick to prove it. — Rainbow Rowell

I went to the Conservatory, studying piano and singing, up to high school - but I only did four years because I then had to start working, and the jobs were so good that I didn't stop. — Elena Roger

But that is how the clues God leaves sometimes work. Sometimes nothing comes of them. Sometimes, as in a great novel, you cannot see until you get to the end that God was leaving clues for you all along. Sometimes you wonder, how did I miss it? Surely any idiot should have been able to see from the second chapter that it was Miss Scarlet in the conservatory with the rope. — Lauren F. Winner

I attended less than two years of Conservatory in Mexico City. — Placido Domingo

I learned my profession onstage. I didn't have a musical background. I had no conservatory training. I don't play an instrument. — Marcello Giordani

Studying music in a conservatory would be stifling for me, although I respect people who can do it. And by no means am I an expert at notating music or music theory - that's not really my world. — Beck

Being an actress wasn't realistic. I knew that I was going to have to do it in a way that would speak to my parents. So I went to NYU Tisch School of the Arts for theater, and I studied at the conservatory. — Gina Rodriguez

Genetically, I have tons of musical background in my life. My mother's father was a famous Weimar-era composer, Ernst Toch. My father's mother was the head of the Vienna Conservatory's piano department. It all canceled out in my case. I'm completely hopeless in music. — Lawrence Weschler

No one promised life would be easy or that the game wouldn't change without warning. There you are, all ready to pass Go and collect two hundred dollars, and suddenly Colonel Mustard is trapped in the conservatory, ranting and raving and waving a wrench, and no one knows what exactly a conservatory is or why anyone thought a wrench - of all things - would be a good murder weapon, or what branch of the military Colonel Mustard even served in! Has anyone seen his credentials? — Beth Harbison

In Conservatory of Death we see modern culture tired and kicking at the end of a rope. It is perhaps the first "deathpunk" novel. — David Kerekes

I grew up studying music. I went to conservatory. — Lance Reddick

I was in a band in high school and college and I always had a love for music, but I didn't go to a conservatory or anything like that. I was fairly self-taught. — Tim Heidecker

I started to write before I went to SUNY Purchase music conservatory. As an audition I submitted what I now think are really awful songs, but I guess they saw something in them. — Regina Spektor

When Claude Debussy studied at the Paris Conservatory from age ten to age twenty-two, many considered him a rebel because of his treatment of dissonance and his disdain for the established forms. He reputedly turned to a fellow student during a performance of Beethoven with the words, Let's go. He's starting to develop. — Claude Debussy

All the buildings lining rue de Conservatoire are constructed of cream marble or limestone. When I went outside today, the sky was pale and fierce, on the very cusp of rain. From the top of the church and the conservatory, the contrast was almost imperceptible, as if marble and air danced cheek to cheek. — Eloisa James

I loved Queen, Journey, Fleetwood Mac, and people like Barbara Streisand. The thing with me is that classical music was also an inspiration. I took piano lessons at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels for 10 years. — Lara Fabian

I did a lot of commercial and theater work when I got out of school and was living in Dallas, and I moved to Chicago to go through the Second City Conservatory Program. — Allison Tolman

One major study observed that in recent years, we have done a magnificent job of turning out fabulously trained performers with no place to play. More encouraging news is that employment options and a real strategy for developing the arts are becoming part of many conservatory curricula. — Renee Fleming

Again, we go back to the power of words and how they can make you feel. They bring liberation or stagnation, they're chains. I began to see the structure of Tori - there's conservatory, and victory: you see that word in so many different other words - also anti-inflammatory but my favorite has to be Yakatori chicken. And I began to feel that the sound of this name was a window. — Tori Amos

I'm being rather a brute to you, aren't I?" he said; "this isn't your idea of a proposal. We ought to be in a conservatory, you in a white frock with a rose in your hand, and a violin playing a waltz in the distance. And I should make violent love to you behind a palm tree. You would feel then you were getting your money's worth. Poor darling, — Daphne Du Maurier

I didn't go to a conservatoire, and I have certain low opinions of certain aspects of the conservatory experience. — Mark Morris

Because I was from the Midwest and untrained, I was completely open and ready to try anything. Many of my classmates were cynical and jaded; some already had conservatory training, and they were there simply to get that Yale stamp of approval, which they saw as a career stepping-stone. — Laila Robins

I got private lessons in keyboard at Julliard, before New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. — Bernie Worrell

I went to the University of California, Santa Cruz for a year, which turned out to be a really vibrant, very intensive intellectual atmosphere where you could do a lot of aspect of music without it being a conservatory. And that's why I went there. — Tod Machover

After a couple years of occasional lessons with Pass I moved to Boston to attend the New England Conservatory. — Mark White

I studied opera, and when I left conservatory I told myself I would never sing in public again. — Garth Greenwell

I went to drama school for four years at Carnegie Mellon, conservatory training before television comedy. I was doing Shakespeare and Chekov plays. It's about delivering on the promise of a $100,000 education and taking the shackles off and trying the hand at my craft. I'm thrilled with what I've seen so far. — Josh Gad

I was at Second City L.A., going through the conservatory, and I graduated in 2004 and I got 'SNL' in 2005. — Bill Hader

Going to college helped me, because I had four years in the conservatory program, which is close as you can get to a professional environment. It's like all day. — Ryan Sypek

Mr. Evans beamed. "Could I get you a drink?" he said. The words were ordinary; the phrase was one that Maureen had heard and often welcomed at endless dozens of parties. But Mr. Evans managed to invest it with such a delightful Edwardian gallantry that you almost thought he had said, "May I bring an ice to you in the conservatory? — Anthony Boucher

I worked at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, lived there for three years, and lived in Baltimore for 12 years. — Wendell Pierce

My dad studied at the American Conservatory in Chicago, so he lived on all those streets. He said the war probably saved his life because he'd have ended up a dead musician, with all the crazy stuff they did on Rush Street back in the day. — Kim Basinger

He was telling us that Thoroughbred racing horses have these companion ponies that always stay by their sides, and I remember thinking, That's me. I'm a companion pony, and companion ponies don't solo. They don't play first chair or audition for All-State or compete nationally or seriously consider a certain performing arts conservatory in New York City like Marguerite had begun insisting. They just don't. — Jandy Nelson

The quality of instruction is very high at the Silverlake Conservatory of Music. It's not about being a rock star. It's about the fundamentals of music, theory and technique on a particular instrument, and playing in an ensemble or private setting. — Flea

I trained as an actor in London and went to Mountview Conservatory, as it was called then, and lived there for eleven years. — Josh Dallas

Everybody we know surrounds himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage, and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his fellow? — Ralph Waldo Emerson

When I was a young musician, the only option available to pursue secondary education in music was to attend a classical conservatory. — Billy Joel

I often say of my background: "That and a Metrocard will get me downtown." Honestly, I think the upshot of my training in acting and writing is that I've been trained to be adventurous. There are so many moments in conservatory where I was encouraged to push the envelope and color outside the lines. I think that sense of bravery flavors what I do. It allows me to take chances that I might not otherwise take. — Steven C. Harper

In 1948 the first severe crash occurred in my life when Stalin put out his decree on 'formalism.' There was a bulletin board in the Moscow Conservatory. They posted the decree, which said Shostakovich's compositions and Prokofiev's were no longer to be played. — Mstislav Rostropovich

I started in high school with a teacher there. I also took lessons at the Conservatory of Music in Detroit. Detroit was very motivating. There were a lot of local people who inspired me like Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, Roy Brooks, Donald Byrd, etc. — Yusef Lateef

When I was 15, 16, I studied with Stella Adler at the Conservatory of Acting, then I stopped again and went to the Actors Studio when I was 18. — Robert De Niro

Thus having been undeservedly accepted at the Conservatory as a professor, I soon became one of its best and possibly its very best pupil, judging by the quantity and value of the information it gave me! — Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

It is one thing to get all the notes right; any number of unsocialized conservatory prodigies can do that. It is another thing to play the thoughts within the notes, the light around them, the darkness behind them, the silence at the end of the phrase. That is what inspires awe. — Alex Ross

If Clue was played like D&D, you could grab the lead pipe, beat a confession out of Colonel Mustard, and have sex with Miss scarlet on the desk in the conservatory. — David Ewalt

Inspired teachers ... cannot be ordered by the gross from the factory. They must be discovered one by one, and brought home from the woods and swamps like orchids. They must be placed in a conservatory, not in a carpenter shop; and they must be honored and trusted. — John Jay Chapman

Conservatory training is so much. There's so much emphasis on playing perfectly in tune and being perfect and doing everything as it's written. — Lucia Micarelli

I was born and grew up in Phoenix, and I left there when I was 17 to go to Interlochen Arts Academy - a boarding school in Michigan - for a year, and then I went to college for a year at The Boston Conservatory and landed the 'Spring Awakening' tour midway through my freshman year, which was pretty cool. — Kimiko Glenn

There's like a special group of people that come from different parts of the planet to study with me. It's nice. I just gave a workshop in Boston at the New England Conservatory, which was really nice. — Charlie Haden

The Silverlake Conservatory is a nonprofit music school in Los Angeles where we teach music, mostly to kids, but to people of all ages - people who are old, people with beards, all kinds of people. — Flea

I started in theatre. I went to the Boston Conservatory and majored in musical theater. — Rachael MacFarlane

My conservatory is in the streets. My intelligence is instinct. — Edith Piaf

Clark Terry is an American Master. I love to listen to him, particularly 'Mumbles.' I was so delighted when we received degrees together, along with Edward Kennedy, at the New England Conservatory in 1997. — Aretha Franklin

My life has had a lot of fits and starts: before I studied literature at all I was a musician, and began undergrad as a conservatory student. I started studying literature in my third year of college, when I took a poetry course with James Longenbach that was pretty extraordinary. It changed my life. — Garth Greenwell

The white cat Sal-al was lying on the straw matting in the empty conservatory. She looked at us with a wicked, conceited expression as if all her appetites had just been satisfied. She was beautiful. Vesta and I both said, "I wish I were a cat!" Before we got to the last word we smiled at each other in annoyance, not liking the idea that most human beings think very much alike. — Denton Welch

I was 16 when I got a scholarship to study classical composition at a conservatory. By that time I had already listened to Scottish folksong with my mother, sung in church choirs, and had sung solo with Benjamin Britten conducting. — Jack Bruce

Once in a while, a teacher gets rewarded with a brilliant student. My two years with Dan Szabo at the New England Conservatory were indeed a gift
he is a pianist with unlimited potential and a composer that makes my heart sing. I deeply feel that he is an important musician for the coming years. — Bob Brookmeyer

Now, as for this new breed of musicians with their 'ultrasonic' conservatory technique, I say: So What. Tell me a story from the heart of your soul and what your existence in this Universe is all about! — Woody Shaw

My favourite piece of architecture is the Royal Conservatory of Music on Bloor (273 Bloor Street West). When they cleaned up the old building a few years back, the stonework just knocked me out. It is a great melding of the Old Toronto and the new. — Andy Barrie

Just so people know, the Silverlake Conservatory of Music is not at all about celebrity or fame or being a star. It's an academic music school. — Flea

Had not the outrageous flair of Sybilla, and since George was a natural horseman it seemed almost inevitable that they should more often than not end up side by side, at some distance from the others. William never came, preferring to work at his painting, which was his profession as well as his vocation. He was gifted to the degree that his works were admired by academicians and collected by connoisseurs. Only Eustace affected to find it displeasing that his only son preferred to retire alone to the studio arranged for him in the conservatory and make use of the morning light, rather than parade on horseback for the fashionable world to admire. When they did not ride, they drove in the carriage, went shopping, paid calls upon their more intimate friends, or visited art galleries and exhibitions. — Anne Perry

I love classical music. Yes, I was in a conservatory when I was younger and played guitar and all that stuff, so I also love rock. — Matt Schulze

Africa may yet prove to be the spiritual conservatory of the world ... When the civilised nations in consequence of their wonderful material development, shall have had their spiritual susceptibilities blunted through the agency of a captivating and absorbing materialism, it may be that they have to resort to Africa to recover some of the simple elements of faith. — Edward Wilmot Blyden

Many nights, Ai-ming said, ignoring my question, her father's music pulled her from sleep. Sparrow, she slowly pieced together, had been one of Shanghai's most renowned composers. But after the Conservatory was shut down in 1966 and all five hundred of its pianos destroyed, Sparrow worked in a factory making wooden crates, then wire, and then radios, for two decades. Ai-ming heard him humming fragments of music when he thought no one was listening. Eventually she came to understand that these fragments were all that remained of his own symphonies, quartets and other musical works. The written copies had been destroyed. — Madeleine Thien

I've never taken a lesson in my life, and I can play every instrument there is. I play by ear, but I can fool anybody into thinking I went to some conservatory of music. — Dick Dale

My love of classical hit pretty early. I was 13 when it occurred, and that was really the only music I listened to for many, many years. I went to a conservatory, but I always knew I would be in the pop world, because A) it was more fun and B) you didn't have to practice as much and you could go out more. But I immediately saw this opportunity to inject my material with these sounds that most members of my generation really didn't know about, so it was a great way to differentiate myself from the pack. — Rufus Wainwright

You see, I don't write the way I was trained to write at the conservatory. I write dysfunctional music. — Ursula K. Le Guin

At one point, I was hell-bent on being a Disney animator, and sort of got over that in college and wanted to do my own stuff. You know, towards the end of college I had actually planned to go to the Boston Conservatory of Music for musical theater. — Seth MacFarlane

Lucy swayed in shock. A gust of wind moaned through the conservatory and blew out all but one of her candles. Simon must have done this. He'd destroyed his fairyland conservatory. Why? She sank to her knees, huddled on the cold floor, her one remaining
flame cradled in her numb palms. She'd seen how tenderly Simon had cared for his plants. Remembered the look of pride when she'd first discovered the dome and fountain. For him to have smashed all this ...
He must have lost hope. All hope. — Elizabeth Hoyt