Hilary Hahn Quotes

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Hilary Hahn

Profession : Musician

Birth : November 27, 1979

Phrasing is the idea of finding sentences and using punctuation in speech. I often look at the score to see what's written in by the composer to see if I can find clues to those directions, like what direction did the composer have in mind, and I try to incorporate those things as much as possible.

Hilary Hahn

It's really been enlightening for me to work with composers because I used to think that everything in the music was exactly what the composer meant. Well, it's what the composer meant in that moment when they wrote it.

Hilary Hahn

I grew up without TV, I grew up listening to radio, I grew up reading.

Hilary Hahn

By the time I was 12, I was starting my high school stuff in home schooling.

Hilary Hahn

Something new has the chance to speak to someone immediately. There isn't this expectation of what they're about to hear, so people can be really captivated, really quickly.

Hilary Hahn

I think when a teacher says that you're ready for something, it means you're ready to learn it. It doesn't always mean that you are completely capable of doing everything that's inside the piece.

Hilary Hahn

I think the things that I learned that stick with me are things you often repeat, even today, which is never stop learning.

Hilary Hahn

Always ask questions.

Hilary Hahn

There's nothing I really wanted to record more than Bach. It's wonderful music. It's - on a grand scale, there's a lot to it. There are - I can work on it for a long time and keep discovering more things, you know, that surprise me every time.

Hilary Hahn

If you think about it - if you watch a gymnast compete, you don't see their training behind the scenes. You just see the competition. You see the final result when it's polished. And that is very much what people experience with concerts. They go to the concert. And they see the final version.

Hilary Hahn

You're not supposed to stop and listen and spy on people practicing. It's supposed to be a private thing. But it's when you come face-to-face with yourself and you look for your flaws and you try to fix them yourself, it's a really intimidating process. It can be very discouraging.

Hilary Hahn

Kids would come up to me after concerts and give me drawings they've made of violins or, you know, landscapes with a violin floating in it or some sketch of a concert or a portrait of me.

Hilary Hahn

I was a student that responded well to knowing what to work on.

Hilary Hahn

You don't have any days to spare if you want to improve!

Hilary Hahn

Obviously, something like ballet, you have music, you dance with the music and it's a very direct connection. With visual art, when there's no music that accompanies the art, such as great masterworks in a museum, you wind up interpreting what the artist is doing, how the artist made that work and what they're conveying.

Hilary Hahn

There's so many different ways to play Mozart.

Hilary Hahn

What I find really interesting is, whenever you see the person who gives you the portrait of yourself, the portrait seems to be a combination of their face and your face.

Hilary Hahn

I've never loved composing, because I feel like other people do it better.

Hilary Hahn

When you have live music in the background, people are usually talking over it. You don't actually get to listen to live music in your space all the time.

Hilary Hahn

Is there such a thing as a normal childhood?

Hilary Hahn