Philip Glass Celebrates 75th Birthday Season With Worldwide Performances

Philip Glass, one of America's most esteemed composers, will celebrate his 75th birthday season with performance and events across the globe encompassing every facet of the composer's decades-long career as a preeminent American composer-opera, chamber music, orchestra music, dance, theatre works and more.

Beginning with the inaugural Days and Nights Festival in Carmel Valley, CA (August 19-September 4), the season features the first performance of a Glass piece by the New York Philharmonic (Koyaanisqatsi score performed live alongside screenings of the film on November 2-3), a reprise of Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera and the world premiere of Symphony No. 9 by Bruckner Orchestra Linz in Austria before the symphony's New York City premiere at Carnegie Hall on Glass's 75th birthday (January 31).

Glass' birthday season continues through 2012 with a week of events curated by the composer for the Park Avenue Armory's Tune-In Music Festival-including a complete performance of Music in 12 Parts with the Philip Glass Ensemble and the New York City premiere of Another Look at Harmony-and the return of Glass' first and most revered opera Einstein on the Beach, which premieres in Montpellier, France in March 2012 and reaches Brooklyn Academy Of Music in September. Glass performs his only evening of chamber music in New York City this season with Tim Fain in The Temple of Dendur in The Sackler Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in April before adding to the celebrations with the first fully staged North American performance of his Kepler opera at Spoletto Festival USA in June 2012. Glass' 75th birthday season concludes with the World Premiere of The Perfect American, a new opera about the death of Walt Disney, in January 2013.

In addition to numerous live performances, Glass' 75th birthday season sees the publication of the composer's first ever recollection of a life in music, due out in 2012. Glass is also the subject of a Beck-curated remix project, featuring contributions from Tyondai Braxton, Nico Muhly, Amon Tobin, Cornelius, Gold Panda, Johann Johannsson, Nosaj Thing and many others.

For more than five decades, Glass continues to be at the forefront of contemporary music and art. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and while there, earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar's Indian music into Western notation. By 1974, Glass had a number of innovative projects, creating a large collection of new music for The Philip Glass Ensemble, and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company. This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts, and the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach for which he collaborated with Robert Wilson. Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8-Glass' latest symphonies-along with Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera based on the book by J.M. Coetzee, premiered in 2005. Several new works have been unveiled recently, including Book of Longing, a collaboration with Leonard Cohen (2007, Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity) and Appomattox (2007, San Francisco Opera), an opera about the end of the Civil War. The English National Opera performed Glass' Satyagraha in London in conjunction with New York's Metropolitan Opera who performed the piece in New York in April 2008. His most recent opera Kepler premiered in Linz in September 2009. Glass continues to tour solo and with The Philip Glass Ensemble.

http://www.festivalpreview.com/festival/days-and-nights-festival-philip-glass

Don't Miss a San Diego News Story
Sign up for all the news on the Summer season, discounts & more...