Education Quote by Alan Hovhaness

Hovhaness sketches a quiet rebellion in the most polite terms possible: he did the work, got good, impressed the gatekeepers, and still kept his gaze fixed on the larger machine behind him. The sentence has the shape of a dutiful student’s biography, but the voltage sits in the contrast between what institutions reward (virtuosity, a marketable career path) and what the artist actually wants (sound as architecture, the orchestra as a world).

The key move is how he frames proficiency as almost incidental. “Fairly proficient” downshifts what could be bragging into a shrug, a way of refusing the pianist’s prestige economy. Piano study, especially in early-20th-century classical training, wasn’t just an instrument; it was a track, with teachers acting as talent scouts for the concert circuit. Hovhaness acknowledges that system without granting it authority over his identity. He positions himself as someone who could have taken the sensible route - become a concert pianist, “earn my living that way” - and chose the harder, less legible one: composing.

Subtextually, it’s also about scale and control. The piano is a sovereign domain: one body, one instrument, one voice at a time. The orchestra is social, political, and kaleidoscopic. For a composer known for spiritual intensity and a fascination with non-Western modalities, “interested in the orchestra” reads like a declaration of belonging to a bigger sonic ecology than the conservatory career ladder. He’s not rejecting craft; he’s rejecting the job description that tries to substitute for a calling.