In celebration of his 80th birthday year, esteemed American composer Philip Glass has been appointed to hold the Richard and Barbara Debs Composer's Chair at Carnegie Hall for the 2017-2018 season. The yearlong residency will present performances that feature both Glass classics and premieres: American Composers Orchestra dedicates a program to composers inspired by Glass; the Philip Glass Ensemble and the San Francisco Girls Chorus perform his groundbreaking but rarely performed masterpiece, Music with Changing Parts, as part of the citywide festival The '60s: The Years that Changed America; notable premieres include a string quartet for the JACK Quartet and arrangements by composer Nico Muhly of lesser-known Glass songs-both Carnegie Hall commissions; additionally, the Louisiana Philharmonic and Pacific Symphony both make their Carnegie Hall debuts in programs selected, in part, by Glass in response to invitations extended to U.S. orchestras to submit programs that place important works by the composer in illuminating contexts. Full details on the residency may be found at http://www.carnegiehall.org/glass/.
The honor and year of events associated with it join the following programs celebrating Glass's 80th birthday, which takes place on January 31 and is marked by the world premiere of his Eleventh
Symphony performed by the Bruckner Orchester Linz at
Carnegie Hall. Highlights of the season follow, with additional events and honors to be announced throughout the season.
"
Philip Glass AT 80" AT THE BARBICAN, LONDON
The Barbican in London celebrates Glass's 80th Birthday January 27-29 with "
Philip Glass at 80," a long weekend of programs that includes the Royal Ballet performing Les Enfants Terribles, Glass's dance opera for ensemble, soloists and dancers with choreography and direction by
Javier De Frutos; a BBC
Symphony Orchestra
Philip Glass Total Immersion Day featuring the U.K. premiere of Glass's Concerto for Two
Pianos with Katia and Marielle Labèque and his monumental symphonic portrait, Itaipú, in a program conducted by
Marin Alsop; performances by the BBC Singers and musicians from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama; and a screening of
Godfrey Reggio's 2013 film VISITORS, the fourth collaboration between Glass and Reggio (following the legendary Qatsi trilogy), in which Glass's original score will be performed live by the BBC
Symphony Orchestra conducted by
Michael Riesman.
SYMPHONY NO. 11 WORLD PREMIERE ON THE COMPOSER'S BIRTHDAY,
Carnegie Hall, NEW YORK
On his 80th birthday, January 31, Glass's
Symphony No. 11 will receive its world premiere at
Carnegie Hall as part of an all-Glass program performed by the Bruckner Orchester Linz, led by Music Director Dennis Russell Davies. The evening will also include the New York premiere of Ifé: Three Yorùbá Songs, Glass's collaboration with Angélique Kidjo, as well as his Days and Nights in Rocinha.
"GLASS AT 80" AT CAROLINA PERFORMING ARTS, UNC CHAPEL HILL,
NORTH CAROLINA
February 1-10 Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill presents "Glass at 80," a celebration of Glass's work and its impact on music and intellectual life through performances featuring some of his most important collaborators. Programming includes Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Bruckner Orchester Linz in a program featuring Glass's Days and Nights in Rocinha along with his new
Symphony No. 11 and Violin Concerto No. 1, which will be performed by Grammy-nominated violinist Robert McDuffie; Heroes Tribute: A
Celebration of the Music of
Philip Glass,
David Bowie and Brian Eno with the UNC
Symphony Orchestra and a host of Merge Records artists and collaborators including singer/songwriter Dan Bejar of
Destroyer and
Superchunk frontman and Merge co-founder Mac McCaughan; Glass's
Complete Piano Etudes performed by Glass himself and nine other remarkable pianists including longtime collaborators and contemporary music specialists;
Lucinda Childs Dance Company presenting the rarely performed DANCE, a seminal collaboration between Glass, Childs and visual artist Sol LeWitt;
Kronos Quartet performing Glass's Dracula score, conducted by Michael Reisman, alongside a screening of the
Universal Pictures 1931 classic starring
Bela Lugosi; and Glass and
Laurie Anderson performing a special evening of music and poetry.
"PHILIP @ 80" AT NATIONAL SAWDUST, BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
Throughout 2017
National Sawdust in Brooklyn will present a series of programs under the banner "Philip @ 80," which will include The
Complete Piano Etudes with Maki Namekawa on February 24 (co-presented with Orange Mountain Music); Bridging the Gap-works by Paola Prestini,
John Zorn and
Philip Glass performed by Jeffrey Zeigler with students from the Yale School of Music on March 5; and an evening with Glass and Foday Musa Suso on March 12 (co-presented with World Music Institute). Additional programming to be announced.
TIBET HOUSE U.S. BENEFIT CONCERT AT
Carnegie Hall, NEW YORK
The 2017 edition of the annual Tibet House U.S. Benefit Concert takes place March 16 at
Carnegie Hall and will be dedicated to the celebration of Glass's 80th birthday and his long association with the organization and its acclaimed yearly event. The special event, which also marks the 30th
Anniversary of the benefit, will include performances by Glass himself,
Laurie Anderson,
Ben Harper,
Iggy Pop, New Order's Bernard Sumner,
Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman,
Alabama Shakes,
Patti Smith and her Band, Sufjan Stevens,
Tenzin Choegyal and Jesse Paris Smith,
Scorchio Quartet and
Lavinia Meijer. Honorary chairpersons include
Uma Thurman,
Chuck Close,
Maggie Gyllenhaal,
Peter Sarsgaard and Arden Wohl. Tickets and further details to be announced at https://tibethouse.us/benefit-concert-2017/.
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL PRESENTS
Jean Cocteau'S LA BELLE ET LA BETE PERFORMED LIVE BY THE
Philip Glass ENSEMBLE AT TOWN HALL
On April 20 The Tribeca Film
Festival and The
Town Hall in association with
Pomegranate Arts present a screening of
Jean Cocteau's film La Belle et la Bete, featuring Glass's original score played live by The
Philip Glass Ensemble.
ABOUT
Philip Glass After more than five decades,
Philip 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 he was creating a large collection of new music for The
Philip Glass Ensemble and for the
Mabou Mines Theater Company (which he co-founded). This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts and the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, on which he collaborated with
Robert Wilson. Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for 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). Several new works have been unveiled in recent years, including two operas in 2013 (The Lost, for the opening of the new opera house in Linz Austria, and The Perfect American, about the death of
Walt Disney). Glass's newest opera, based on Kafka's The Trial, premiered at London's Covent Garden in
October 2014 and in 2015 the
Washington National Opera premiered a newly revised version of his 2007 work, Appomattox, on which he collaborated with librettist
Christopher Hampton. Ifé: Three Yoruba Songs, written with his friend and collaborator
Angelique Kidjo, was premiered by the Philharmonique de Luxembourg in January 2014; and in 2015 the Los
Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, premiered his latest concerto, a piece written for pianists Marielle and Katia Labèque. Glass's memoir, Words Without Music, was released to great acclaim via Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W.W. Norton & Company, and last year he was named the eleventh recipient of the Glenn Gould Prize, a lifetime achievement award given to prominent musicians.
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