Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times.
The operas – “Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha" and ” “Akhnaten” among many others – play throughout the world’s leading houses, and rarely to an empty seat. Glass has written music for films ranging from “The Hours” to “Koyaanisqatsi,” his initial filmic landscape for director Godfrey Reggio.
Glass was born in 1937 and grew up in Baltimore. He studied at the University of Chicago, the Juilliard School, in Aspen with Darius Milhaud and later with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and worked closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble.
There has been nothing “minimalist” about his output. In the past 25 years, Glass has composed more than thirty operas, large and small; fourteen symphonies; thirteen concertos including three piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; a complete book of piano etudes and nine string quartets.
