By Dan Visconti
Being that classical music is just about the only genre of music in which printed programs are the norm, then why is it also the only genre in which gross misunderstandings so easily flourish?

By Dan Visconti
Are there composers who retain a very clear aural imprint of every thing they’ve ever written on the minute level, and at the other extreme, has anyone ever forgotten having written a piece?

By Dan Visconti
The framework for more outside-of-academia, on-the-job training already exists but is underfunded and modest in scope; on the other hand, many elements of a rationally-planned network for new opera development don’t even exist in skeletal form.

By Dan Visconti
I want to provide myself with a nutritious diet during this time, almost as a mother carrying a child must feel; carrying and nourishing a precious entity seems as close to any description of composing as I’ve ever encountered.

By Dan Visconti
While useful orchestration texts abound, I have always been surprised that I have never come across any devoted to the specific challenge of composing for pit groups.

By Dan Visconti
Despite huge variations in budget, both chamber ensembles and orchestra of all stripes operate under vastly more uniform templates than the spread of most American opera companies.

By Dan Visconti
When the “lights are on” in our sense of self, it’s easy to discern between inner thoughts and the physical world outside; similarly, after dark our awareness of the outside world dims, replaced by the reflection of our own mental lights on the window panes of perception.

By Dan Visconti
Technology has in many ways opened up opportunities and collaborations that would not have been otherwise available.

By Dan Visconti
Plays, opera, and the like tend to take place in a matter of hours, not years; we can’t spend every day with these characters to figure out what drives them, so that which drives them must be amply apparent in the scads of nearly “insignificant” details of body language, pacing, and vocal emphasis.

By Dan Visconti
While I’d like to attend all the performances of my music, this is no longer even physically possible—so different from beginning student days, where every musical interaction, performance, and rehearsal took place under the auspices of the same mother institution.