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I bring my classical training - some of it, but not all of it - and also my background and culture, to spirituals. And I try to leave room for that unpredictable factor, where the feeling of the song is allowed to come through. The same ethos can be applied to singing Mozart, or Schubert, or Bach. It's not just about what's on the page.

Kathleen Battle

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Kathleen Battle
Age: 76
Born: 1948
Born: August 13
Musician
Opera Singer
Recording Artist
Singer
Portsmouth
Ohio
Bring
Page
Mozart
Feeling
Allowed
Unpredictable
Song
Pages
Applied
Culture
Training
Classical
Feelings
Singing
Factor
Spirituals
Also
Room
Background
Schubert
Come
Rooms
Backgrounds
Bach
Trying
Leave
Factors
Ethos

More quotes by Kathleen Battle

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In spirituals, the talk of heaven and deliverance was code for a better life. 'Crossing the River Jordan' was code, of course, for escaping to freedom.
Kathleen Battle
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The question is not... if art is enough to fulfill my life, but if I am true to the path I have set for myself, if I am the best I can be in the things I do. Am I living up to the reasons I became a singer in the first place?
Kathleen Battle
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I think for more than half of my career I have refrained from talking to the media.
Kathleen Battle
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I hear music that comes out of need, out of grief, sorrow, suffering and out of overcoming these things, as well. That journey to freedom still goes on today. It's an incremental change, the culmination of many events in your own life and the lives of your children and grandchildren.
Kathleen Battle
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I can't imagine life without singing.
Kathleen Battle
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Wherever and whenever I sing, if there is only one spiritual on a program, people will talk about two things afterward, and one of them will be the spiritual. What I bring to this is the best of my classical training - not all of it. I apply what is appropriate.
Kathleen Battle
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How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.
Kathleen Battle