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| 1. | Actually, however, I was not the American Sibelius. This was a mistake. I was far too Armenian to be compared to Sibelius. |
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| 2. | After 1942 I became closely connected with Yenovk Der Hagopian, who was a fine singer of folk music, a fine troubadour type of singer. A singer of Sayat Nova. A singer in pure style. |
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| 3. | Also, many very good records of contemporary music have been allowed to disappear. They don't recut them even when they are successful. |
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| 4. | I did all kinds of things in order to earn a living. |
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| 5. | I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn't know anything about it. |
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| 6. | I had been composing but I didn't know I was. When I realized that this was what I had been doing, I began to take it seriously. |
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| 7. | I never use a theme without stating that I borrowed the material for some commission where they wanted this used. |
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| 8. | I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place. |
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| 9. | I was born in Somerville, but I don't remember very much about it because we moved from there to Arlington when I was five years old, and it was in Arlington that I spent most of my childhood. |
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| 10. | I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way. |
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| 11. | I've always regarded nature as the clothing of God. |
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| 12. | In back of the house where I was born there was an attic and from there you could see a poorhouse. I remember that very clearly. |
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| 13. | It's hard for me to think of others because I'm not particularly in sympathy with the music of this century. |
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| 14. | My father and mother had a fight about it and they chose Alan because Elam was the neighboring country to Armenia in ancient times, and because Alan is Scotch also, so they made a compromise on that. |
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| 15. | My mother's background was Scottish. She came from an old family, some of whom lived in upper New York State and some of whom had come over from Scotland. |
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| 16. | No, no, I didn't know him. He lost his mind around 1917 because of the tragedy of the Armenians. |
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| 17. | Not with Martinu personally, but somehow I had a very antagonistic relationship there with the Copland School and it didn't seem to work out very well. |
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| 18. | Somehow, I didn't take music seriously until I heard my first good piece of music. |
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| 19. | The Noh Theatre is something I love very much. When I was in Japan I used to go every week, for a period of almost one year-while I was studying there. |
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| 20. | The pieces of mine that have been recorded are the ones that are played the most. |
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| 21. | There are certain composers I have always admired very much, but I have always admired nature mostly and the music of the Orient. |
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| 22. | There is nothing like practice. |
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| 23. | There were periods when I sometimes made fires in a large, open fireplace that lasted about two weeks, which was how long it took to burn my compositions. So there has been an awful lot that I have destroyed. |
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| 24. | This is not to say that the Scots are not fine people, but they were all sort of... well, my grandfather was a minister and sort of Protestant, and this was rather depressing to me. |
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| 25. | When my teacher went to it-the name of the opera was "Daniel"-she said, "Well, this music sounds very Jewish and I think the Jews would like it." But it really was Armenian, you know. |
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