John Eaton
John Eaton
John Henry Eatonwas an American politician and diplomat from Tennessee who served as U.S. Senator and as Secretary of War in the administration of Andrew Jackson. He was 28 years old when he entered the Senate, making him the second-youngest U.S. Senator in history after Armistead Thomson Mason. Eaton resigned as Secretary of War as part of a strategy to resolve the Petticoat affair, a social scandal that involved Eaton and his wife, Peggy, and hindered the effectiveness of the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth18 June 1790
CountryUnited States of America
I wait until something is really in the shape that I want to make it as a permanent record, because I think of recording as a permanent record.
I wish that every opera company in America had a VOX season. There is nothing more helpful in making the public aware of the richness and variety of operatic music being written today. The composers represent the entire country. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the VOX season is a National Treasure!
Of course, in opera, you involve the audience so much with action and with what's happening on stage, that the music is the center of that action.
What's important for me is to communicate the vision that I have in sound with the audience that's hearing it.
Well, I can't agree with you more, and I really wish every piece of mine were recorded, and I wish I had spent more time trying to pursue that.
Not that one shouldn't use all of those technical advantage, but the essence of what's being communicated shouldn't be technology.
In other words, I think that if an audience listens to something as an experience of how in tune it is or something of that kind, that the whole point is somehow being missed, and the music has failed.
If you look at the timing of many of the Greek dramas from the theatrical point of view, it's all off, and I think the reason for that is that music played a very important part.
I'm thinking in terms of a point of departure, a field of action for performers to express an expressive need of mine which hopefully the context of music would convey.
However, yes, especially as one gets older, you know, you really hope that your music will become more generally available, even though some of the performances might be riddled with faults.
I think the composer and production staff of an opera have a real responsibility to use visual elements of all kinds to make clear to the American audience, at any rate, exactly what is going on.
I've just simply used what I've used because of the great, great expressive potential of it.
I want the audience to be so involved in the sweep of the music.
I think I was first to do live performances on a modern electronic sound synthesizer.