Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an Americancomposer andpianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century.[1][2][3][4] Glass's work has been associated withminimalism, being built up from repetitivephrases and shifting layers.[5][6] He described himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures",[7] which he has helped to evolve stylistically.[8][9]
Glass was born inBaltimore,Maryland,[10][11] on January 31, 1937,[12] the son of Ida (née Gouline) and Benjamin Charles Glass.[13] His family wereLatvian-Jewish andRussian-Jewish emigrants.[14][15][16] His father owned a record store and his mother was alibrarian.[17] In his memoir, Glass recalls that at the end ofWorld War II his mother aided JewishHolocaust survivors, inviting recent arrivals to America to stay at their home until they could find a job and a place to live.[18]: 14 She developed a plan to help them learn English and develop skills so they could find work.[18]: 15 His sister, Sheppie, would later do similar work as an active member of theInternational Rescue Committee.[18]: 15
Glass developed his appreciation of music from his father, discovering later that his father's side of the family had many musicians. His cousin Cevia was aclassical pianist, while others had been invaudeville. He learned his family was also related toAl Jolson.[18]: 16 Glass's father often received promotional copies of new recordings at his music store. Glass spent many hours listening to them, developing his knowledge of and taste in music. This openness to modern sounds affected Glass at an early age:
My father was self-taught, but he ended up having a very refined and rich knowledge of classical, chamber, and contemporary music. Typically he would come home and have dinner, and then sit in his armchair and listen to music until almost midnight. I caught on to this very early, and I would go and listen with him.[18]: 17
The elder Glass promoted both new recordings and a wide selection of composers to his customers, sometimes convincing them to try something new by allowing them to return records they did not like.[18]: 17 His store soon developed a reputation as Baltimore's leading source of modern music.[19] Glass built a sizable record collection from the unsold records in his father's store, including modern classical music such asHindemith,Bartók,Schoenberg,[20]Shostakovich and Western classical music includingBeethoven's string quartets andSchubert'sB♭ Piano Trio. Glass cites Schubert's work as a "big influence" growing up.[21] In a 2011 interview, Glass stated that Franz Schubert—with whom he shares a birthday—is his favorite composer.[22]
He studied the flute as a child at thePeabody Preparatory of thePeabody Institute of Music. At the age of 15, he entered an accelerated college program at theUniversity of Chicago where he studied mathematics and philosophy.[23] In Chicago, he discovered theserialism ofAnton Webern and composed atwelve-tonestring trio.[24] In 1954, Glass traveled to Paris, where he encountered the films ofJean Cocteau, which made a lasting impression on him. He visited artists' studios and saw their work; Glass recalls, "thebohemian life you see in [Cocteau's]Orphée was the life I ... was attracted to, and those were the people I hung out with."[25]
Glass studied at theJuilliard School of Music where the keyboard was his main instrument. His composition teachers includedVincent Persichetti andWilliam Bergsma. Fellow students includedSteve Reich andPeter Schickele. In 1959, he was a winner in theBMI Foundation's BMI Student Composer Awards, an international prize for young composers. In the summer of 1960, he studied withDarius Milhaud at the summer school of theAspen Music Festival and composed a violin concerto for a fellow student, Dorothy Pixley-Rothschild.[26] After leaving Juilliard in 1962, Glass moved toPittsburgh and worked as a school-based composer-in-residence in the public school system, composing various choral, chamber, and orchestral music.[27]
In 1964, Glass received aFulbright Scholarship; his studies in Paris with the eminent composition teacherNadia Boulanger, from autumn of 1964 to summer of 1966, influenced his work throughout his life, as the composer admitted in 1979: "The composers I studied with Boulanger are the people I still think about most—Bach andMozart."[28]
Glass later wrote in his autobiographyMusic by Philip Glass in 1987 that the new music performed atPierre Boulez'sDomaine Musical concerts in Paris lacked any excitement for him (with the notable exceptions of music byJohn Cage andMorton Feldman), but he was deeply impressed by new films and theatre performances. His move away from modernist composers such as Boulez andStockhausen was nuanced, rather than outright rejection: "That generation wanted disciples and as we didn't join up it was taken to mean that we hated the music, which wasn't true. We'd studied them at Juilliard and knew their music. How on earth can you rejectBerio? Those early works of Stockhausen are still beautiful. But there was just no point in attempting to do their music better than they did and so we started somewhere else."[29]
During this time, he encountered revolutionary films of theFrench New Wave, such as those ofJean-Luc Godard andFrançois Truffaut, which upended the rules set by an older generation of artists,[30] and Glass made friends with American visual artists (the sculptorRichard Serra and his wifeNancy Graves),[31] actors and directors (JoAnne Akalaitis,Ruth Maleczech,David Warrilow, andLee Breuer, with whom Glass later founded the experimental theatre groupMabou Mines). Together with Akalaitis (they married in 1965), Glass in turn attended performances by theatre groups includingJean-Louis Barrault'sOdéon theatre,The Living Theatre and theBerliner Ensemble in 1964 to 1965.[32] These significant encounters resulted in a collaboration with Breuer for which Glass contributed music for a 1965 staging ofSamuel Beckett'sComédie (Play, 1963). The resulting piece (written for twosoprano saxophones) was directly influenced by the play's open-ended, repetitive and almost musical structure and was the first one of a series of four early pieces in a minimalist, yet stilldissonant, idiom.[24] AfterPlay, Glass also acted in 1966 as music director of a Breuer production ofBrecht'sMother Courage and Her Children, featuring the theatre score byPaul Dessau.
In parallel with his early excursions in experimental theatre, Glass worked in winter 1965 and spring 1966 as a music director and composer[33] on a film score (Chappaqua, Conrad Rooks, 1966) withRavi Shankar andAlla Rakha, which added another important influence on Glass's musical thinking. His distinctive style arose from his work with Shankar and Rakha and their perception of rhythm inIndian music as being entirely additive. He renounced all his compositions in a moderately modern style resemblingMilhaud's,Aaron Copland's, andSamuel Barber's, and began writing pieces based on repetitive structures of Indian music and a sense of time influenced by Samuel Beckett: a piece for two actresses and chamber ensemble, a work for chamber ensemble and his first numbered string quartet (No. 1, 1966).[34]
Glass then left Paris for northern India in 1966, where he came in contact withTibetan refugees and began to gravitate towardsBuddhism. He metTenzin Gyatso, the 14thDalai Lama, in 1972, and has been a strong supporter of the Tibetan independence ever since.
1967–1974: Minimalism: FromStrung Out toMusic in 12 Parts
Glass' musical style is instantly recognizable, with its trademark churningostinatos, undulatingarpeggios and repeating rhythms that morph over various lengths of time atop broad fields of tonal harmony. That style has taken permanent root in our pop-middlebrow sensibility. Glass' music is now indelibly a part of our culturallingua franca, just a click away on YouTube.
Shortly after arriving in New York City in March 1967, Glass attended a performance of works bySteve Reich (including the ground-breaking minimalist piecePiano Phase), which left a deep impression on him; he simplified his style and turned to a radical "consonant vocabulary".[24] Finding little sympathy from traditional performers and performance spaces, Glass eventually formed an ensemble with fellow ex-studentJon Gibson, and others, and began performing mainly in art galleries and studio lofts ofSoHo. The visual artist Richard Serra provided Glass with Gallery contacts, while both collaborated on various sculptures, films and installations; from 1971 to 1974, he was Serra's regular studio assistant.[31][35]
Between summer of 1967 and the end of 1968, Glass composed nine works, includingStrung Out (for amplified solo violin, composed in summer of 1967),Gradus (for solo saxophone, 1968),Music in the Shape of a Square (for two flutes, composed in May 1968, an homage toErik Satie),How Now (for solo piano, 1968) and1+1 (for amplified tabletop, November 1968) which were "clearly designed to experiment more fully with his new-found minimalist approach".[36] The first concert of Glass's new music was atJonas Mekas's Film-Makers Cinemathèque (Anthology Film Archives) in September 1968. This concert included the first work of this series withStrung Out (performed by the violinist Pixley-Rothschild) andMusic in the Shape of a Square (performed by Glass and Gibson). The musical scores were tacked on the wall, and the performers had to move while playing. Glass's new works met with a very enthusiastic response by the audience which consisted mainly of visual and performance artists who were highly sympathetic to Glass's reductive approach.
Apart from his music career, Glass had amoving company with his cousin, the sculptor Jene Highstein, and also worked as a plumber andcab driver (during 1973 to 1978). He recounts installing a dishwasher and looking up from his work to see an astonishedRobert Hughes,Time magazine's art critic, staring at him.[37] During this time, he made friends with other New York-based artists such asSol LeWitt,Nancy Graves,Michael Snow,Bruce Nauman,Laurie Anderson, andChuck Close (who created a now-famous portrait of Glass).[38] (Glass returned the compliment in 2005 withA Musical Portrait of Chuck Close for piano.)
With1+1 andTwo Pages (composed in February 1969), Glass turned to a more "rigorous approach" to his "most basic minimalist technique, additive process",[39] pieces which were followed in the same year byMusic in Contrary Motion andMusic in Fifths (a kind of homage to his composition teacherNadia Boulanger, who pointed out "hidden fifths" in his works but regarded them as cardinal sins). Eventually Glass's music grew less austere, becoming more complex and dramatic, with pieces such asMusic in Similar Motion (1969), andMusic with Changing Parts (1970). These pieces were performed by thePhilip Glass Ensemble in theWhitney Museum of American Art in 1969 and in theSolomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1970, often encountering hostile reaction from critics,[24] but Glass's music was also met with enthusiasm from younger artists such asBrian Eno andDavid Bowie (at the Royal College of Art ca. 1970).[40] Eno described this encounter with Glass's music as one of the "most extraordinary musical experiences of [his] life", as a "viscous bath of pure, thick energy", concluding "this was actually the most detailed music I'd ever heard. It was all intricacy, exoticharmonics".[41] In 1970, Glass returned to the theatre, composing music for the theatre groupMabou Mines, resulting in his first minimalist pieces employing voices:Red Horse Animation andMusic for Voices (both 1970, and premiered at thePaula Cooper Gallery).[42]
After differences of opinion with Steve Reich in 1971,[24] Glass formed the Philip Glass Ensemble (while Reich formedSteve Reich and Musicians), an amplified ensemble including keyboards, wind instruments (saxophones, flutes), andsoprano voices.
Glass's music for his ensemble culminated in the four-hour-longMusic in Twelve Parts (1971–1974), which began as a single piece with twelve instrumental parts but developed into a cycle that summed up Glass's musical achievement since 1967, and even transcended it—the last part features atwelve-tone theme, sung by the soprano voice of the ensemble. "I had broken the rules ofmodernism and so I thought it was time to break some of my own rules", according to Glass.[43] Though he finds the term minimalist inaccurate to describe his later work, Glass does accept this term for pieces up to and includingMusic in 12 Parts, excepting this last part which "was the end of minimalism" for Glass. As he pointed out: "I had worked for eight or nine years inventing a system, and now I'd written through it and come out the other end."[43] He now prefers to describe himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures".[23]
1975–1979: Another Look at Harmony: The Portrait Trilogy
Glass continued his work with a series of instrumental works, calledAnother Look at Harmony (1975–1977). For Glass, this series demonstrated a new start, hence the title: "What I was looking for was a way of combining harmonic progression with the rhythmic structure I had been developing, to produce a new overall structure. ... I'd taken everything out with my early works and it was now time to decide just what I wanted to put in—a process that would occupy me for several years to come."[43]
Parts 1 and 2 ofAnother Look at Harmony were included in a collaboration withRobert Wilson, a piece of musical theater later designated by Glass as the first opera of his portrait opera trilogy:Einstein on the Beach. Composed in spring to fall of 1975 in close collaboration with Wilson, Glass's first opera was first premiered in summer 1976 at theFestival d'Avignon, and in November of the same year to a mixed and partly enthusiastic reaction from the audience at theMetropolitan Opera in New York City. Scored for the Philip Glass Ensemble, solo violin, chorus, and featuring actors (reciting texts byChristopher Knowles,Lucinda Childs and Samuel M. Johnson), Glass's and Wilson's essentially plotless opera was conceived as a "metaphorical look atAlbert Einstein: scientist, humanist, amateur musician—and the man whose theories ... led to the splitting of the atom", evokingnuclear holocaust in the climactic scene, as criticTim Page pointed out.[44] As withAnother Look at Harmony, "Einstein added a new functional harmony that set it apart from the early conceptual works".[44] ComposerTom Johnson came to the same conclusion, comparing the solo violin music toJohann Sebastian Bach, and the "organ figures ... to thoseAlberti bassesMozart loved so much".[45] The piece was praised byThe Washington Post as "one of the seminal artworks of the century".
Einstein on the Beach was followed by further music for projects by the theatre group Mabou Mines such asDressed like an Egg (1975), and again music for plays and adaptations from prose bySamuel Beckett, such asThe Lost Ones (1975),Cascando (1975),Mercier and Camier (1979). Glass also turned to other media; two multi-movement instrumental works for the Philip Glass Ensemble originated as music for film and TV:North Star (1977 score for the documentaryNorth Star: Mark di Suvero by François de Menil andBarbara Rose) and four short cues for the children's TV seriesSesame Street namedGeometry of Circles (1979).
Another series,Fourth Series (1977–79), included music for chorus and organ ("Part One", 1977), organ and piano ("Part Two" and "Part Four", 1979), and music for a radio adaption ofConstance DeJong's novelModern Love ("Part Three", 1978). "Part Two" and "Part Four" were used (and hence renamed) in two dance productions by choreographerLucinda Childs (who had already contributed to and performed inEinstein on the Beach). "Part Two" was included inDance (a collaboration with visual artistSol LeWitt, 1979), and "Part Four" was renamed asMad Rush, and performed by Glass on several occasions such as the first public appearance of the14th Dalai Lama in New York City in fall 1981. The piece demonstrates Glass's turn to more traditional models: the composer added a conclusion to an open-structured piece which "can be interpreted as a sign that he [had] abandoned the radical non-narrative, undramatic approaches of his early period", as the pianistSteffen Schleiermacher points out.[46]
In spring 1978, Glass received a commission from theNetherlands Opera (as well as aRockefeller Foundation grant) which "marked the end of his need to earn money from non-musical employment".[47] With the commission Glass continued his work in music theater, composing his operaSatyagraha (composed in 1978–1979, premiered in 1980 at Rotterdam), based on the early life ofMahatma Gandhi in South Africa,Leo Tolstoy,Rabindranath Tagore, andMartin Luther King Jr. ForSatyagraha, Glass worked in close collaboration with two "SoHo friends": the writerConstance deJong, who provided the libretto, and the set designer Robert Israel. This piece was in other ways a turning point for Glass, as it was his first work since 1963 scored for symphony orchestra, even if the most prominent parts were still reserved for solo voices and chorus. Shortly after completing the score in August 1979, Glass met the conductorDennis Russell Davies, whom he helped prepare for performances in Germany (using a piano-four-hands version of the score); together they started to plan another opera, to be premiered at theStuttgart State Opera.[30]
1980–1986: Completing the Portrait Trilogy:Akhnaten and beyond
A scene from a 2017 performance inBerlin ofSatyagraha, an opera by Glass
While planning a third part of his "Portrait Trilogy", Glass turned to smaller music theatre projects such as the non-narrativeMadrigal Opera (for six voices and violin and viola, 1980), andThe Photographer, a biographic study on the photographerEadweard Muybridge (1982). Glass also continued to write for the orchestra with the score ofKoyaanisqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1981–1982). Some pieces which were not used in the film (such asFaçades) eventually appeared on the albumGlassworks (1982, CBS Records), which brought Glass's music to a wider public.
The "Portrait Trilogy" was completed withAkhnaten (1982–1983, premiered in 1984), a vocal and orchestral composition sung inAkkadian,Biblical Hebrew, andAncient Egyptian. In addition, this opera featured an actor reciting ancient Egyptian texts in the language of the audience.Akhnaten was commissioned by theStuttgart Opera in a production designed byAchim Freyer. It premiered simultaneously at theHouston Opera in a production directed by David Freeman and designed byPeter Sellars. At the time of the commission, the Stuttgart Opera House was undergoing renovation, necessitating the use of a nearby playhouse with a smaller orchestra pit. Upon learning this, Glass and conductor Dennis Russell Davies visited the playhouse, placing music stands around the pit to determine how many players the pit could accommodate. The two found they could not fit a full orchestra in the pit. Glass decided to eliminate the violins, which had the effect of "giving the orchestra a low, dark sound that came to characterize the piece and suited the subject very well".[30] As Glass remarked in 1992,Akhnaten is significant in his work since it represents a "first extension out of atriadic harmonic language", an experiment with thepolytonality of his teachersPersichetti andMilhaud, a musical technique which Glass compares to "an optical illusion, such as in the paintings ofJosef Albers".[48]
Glass again collaborated withRobert Wilson on another opera,the CIVIL warS (1983, premiered in 1984), which also functioned as the final part (the Rome section) of Wilson's epic work by the same name, originally planned for an "international arts festival that would accompany the Olympic Games in Los Angeles".[49] (Glass also composed a prestigious work for chorus and orchestra for the opening of the Games,The Olympian: Lighting of the Torch and Closing). The premiere ofThe CIVIL warS in Los Angeles never materialized[clarification needed] and the opera was in the end premiered at the Opera of Rome. Glass's and Wilson's opera includes musical settings of Latin texts by the 1st-century-Roman playwrightSeneca and allusions to the music ofGiuseppe Verdi and from theAmerican Civil War, featuring the 19th century figuresGiuseppe Garibaldi andRobert E. Lee as characters.
In the mid-1980s, Glass produced "works in different media at an extraordinarily rapid pace".[50] Projects from that period include music for dance (Glass Pieces choreographed forNew York City Ballet byJerome Robbins in 1983 to a score drawn from existing Glass compositions created for other media including an excerpt fromAkhnaten; andIn the Upper Room,Twyla Tharp, 1986), music for theatre productionsEndgame (1984) andCompany (1983). Beckett vehemently disapproved of the production ofEndgame at theAmerican Repertory Theater (Cambridge, Massachusetts), which featuredJoAnne Akalaitis's direction and Glass'sPrelude for timpani and double bass, but in the end, he authorized the music forCompany, four short, intimate pieces forstring quartet that were played in the intervals of the dramatization. This composition was initially regarded by the composer as a piece ofGebrauchsmusik ('music for use')—"like salt and pepper ... just something for the table", as he noted.[51] EventuallyCompany was published as Glass'sString Quartet No. 2 and in a version for string orchestra, being performed by ensembles ranging from student orchestras to renowned formations such as theKronos Quartet and theKremerata Baltica.
This interest in writing for thestring quartet and the string orchestra led to a chamber and orchestral film score forMishima: A Life in Four Chapters (Paul Schrader, 1984–85), which Glass recently described as his "musical turning point" that developed his "technique of film scoring in a very special way".[52]
Compositions such asCompany,Facades and String Quartet No. 3 (the last two extracted from the scores toKoyaanisqatsi andMishima) gave way to a series of works more accessible to ensembles such as thestring quartet andsymphony orchestra, in this returning to the structural roots of his student days. In taking this direction hischamber and orchestral works were also written in a more and more traditional and lyrical style. In these works, Glass often employs old musical forms such as thechaconne and thepassacaglia—for instance inSatyagraha,[24] theViolin Concerto No. 1 (1987),Symphony No. 3 (1995),Echorus (1995) and also recent works such asSymphony No. 8 (2005),[53] andSongs and Poems for Solo Cello (2006).
A series of orchestral works originally composed for the concert hall commenced with the three-movementViolin Concerto No. 1 (1987). This work was commissioned by theAmerican Composers Orchestra and written for and in close collaboration with the violinistPaul Zukofsky and the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, who since then has encouraged the composer to write numerous orchestral pieces. The Concerto is dedicated to the memory of Glass's father: "His favorite form was the violin concerto, and so I grew up listening to theMendelssohn, thePaganini, theBrahms concertos. ... So when I decided to write a violin concerto, I wanted to write one that my father would have liked."[54] Among its multiple recordings, in 1992, the Concerto was performed and recorded byGidon Kremer and theVienna Philharmonic. This turn to orchestral music was continued with a symphonic trilogy of "portraits of nature", commissioned by theCleveland Orchestra, theRotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and theAtlanta Symphony Orchestra:The Light (1987),The Canyon (1988), andItaipu (1989).
While composing for symphonic ensembles, Glass also composed music for piano, with the cycle of five movements titledMetamorphosis (adapted from music for a theatrical adaptation ofFranz Kafka'sThe Metamorphosis), and for theErrol Morris filmThe Thin Blue Line, 1988. In the same year Glass met the poetAllen Ginsberg by chance in a book store in theEast Village of New York City, and they immediately "decided on the spot to do something together, reached for one of Allen's books and choseWichita Vortex Sutra",[55] a piece for reciter and piano which in turn developed into a music theatre piece for singers and ensemble,Hydrogen Jukebox (1990).
Glass also returned to chamber music; he composed two String Quartets (No. 4Buczak in 1989 and No. 5 in 1991), and chamber works which originated as incidental music for plays, such asMusic from "The Screens" (1989/1990). This work originated in one of many theater music collaborations with the directorJoAnne Akalaitis, who originally asked theGambian musicianFoday Musa Suso "to do the score [forJean Genet'sThe Screens] in collaboration with a western composer".[56] Glass had already collaborated with Suso in the film score toPowaqqatsi (Godfrey Reggio, 1988).Music from "The Screens" is on occasion a touring piece for Glass and Suso (one set of tours also included percussionistYousif Sheronick ), and individual pieces found their way into the repertoire of Glass and the cellist Wendy Sutter. Another collaboration was a collaborative recording project withRavi Shankar, initiated byPeter Baumann (a member of the bandTangerine Dream), which resulted in the albumPassages (1990).
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Glass's projects also included two highly prestigious opera commissions based on the life of explorers:The Voyage (1992), with a libretto byDavid Henry Hwang, was commissioned by theMetropolitan Opera for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America byChristopher Columbus; andWhite Raven (1991), aboutVasco da Gama, a collaboration with Robert Wilson and composed for the closure of the1998 World Fair in Lisbon. Especially inThe Voyage, the composer "explore[d] new territory", with its "newly arching lyricism", "Sibelian starkness and sweep", and "dark, brooding tone ... a reflection of its increasinglychromatic (anddissonant) palette", as one commentator put it.[24]
Glass remixed theS'Express song "Hey Music Lover", for the b-side of its 1989 release as a single.[57]
After these operas, Glass began working on a symphonic cycle, commissioned by the conductorDennis Russell Davies, who told Glass at the time: "I'm not going to let you ... be one of those opera composers who never write asymphony".[58] Glass responded with a pair of three-movement symphonies ("Low" [1992], andSymphony No. 2 [1994]); his first in an ongoing series of symphonies is a combination of the composer's own musical material with themes featured in prominent tracks of the David Bowie/Brian Eno albumLow (1977),[59] whereas Symphony No. 2 is described by Glass as a study inpolytonality. He referred to the music ofHonegger,Milhaud, andVilla-Lobos as possible models for his symphony.[60] With the Concerto Grosso (1992),Symphony No. 3 (1995), a Concerto for Saxophone Quartet and Orchestra (1995), written for theRascher Quartet (all commissioned by conductor Dennis Russell Davies), andEchorus (1994/95), a more transparent, refined, and intimate chamber-orchestral style paralleled the excursions of his large-scale symphonic pieces. In the four movements of his Third Symphony, Glass treats a 19-piece string orchestra as an extended chamber ensemble. In the third movement, Glass re-uses the chaconne as a formal device; one commentator characterized Glass's symphony as one of the composer's "most tautly unified works".[61][62] The third Symphony was closely followed by a fourth, subtitledHeroes (1996), commissioned theAmerican Composers Orchestra. Its six movements are symphonic reworkings of themes by Glass, David Bowie, and Brian Eno (from their album"Heroes", 1977); as in other works by the composer, it is also a hybrid work and exists in two versions: one for the concert hall, and another, shorter one for dance, choreographed byTwyla Tharp.
Another commission by Dennis Russell Davies was a second series for piano, theEtudes for Piano (dedicated to Davies as well as the production designerAchim Freyer); the complete first set of ten Etudes has been recorded and performed by Glass himself.Bruce Brubaker and Dennis Russell Davies have each recorded the original set of six. Most of the Etudes are composed in the post-minimalist and increasingly lyrical style of the times: "Within the framework of a concise form, Glass explores possible sonorities ranging from typically Baroque passagework to Romantically tinged moods".[63] Some of the pieces also appeared in different versions such as in the theatre music to Robert Wilson'sPersephone (1994, commissioned by theRelache Ensemble) orEchorus (a version of Etude No. 2 for two violins and string orchestra, written for Edna Mitchell andYehudi Menuhin 1995).
Glass's prolific output in the 1990s continued to include operas with an operatriptych (1991–1996), which the composer described as an "homage" to writer and film directorJean Cocteau, based on his prose and cinematic work:Orphée (1950),La Belle et la Bête (1946), and the novelLes Enfants terribles (1929, later made into a film by Cocteau andJean-Pierre Melville, 1950). In the same way the triptych is also a musical homage to the work of the group of French composers associated with Cocteau,Les Six (and especially to Glass's teacher Darius Milhaud), as well as to various 18th-century composers such asGluck andBach whose music featured as an essential part of the films by Cocteau.
The inspiration of the first part of the trilogy,Orphée (composed in 1991, and premiered in 1993 at theAmerican Repertory Theatre) can be conceptually and musically traced to Gluck's operaOrfeo ed Euridice (Orphée et Euridyce, 1762/1774),[24] which had a prominent part in Cocteau's 1949 filmOrphee.[64] One theme of the opera, the death ofEurydice, has some similarity to the composer's personal life: the opera was composed after the unexpected death in 1991 of Glass's wife, artistCandy Jernigan: "... One can only suspect that Orpheus' grief must have resembled the composer's own", K. Robert Schwartz suggests.[24] The opera's "transparency of texture, a subtlety of instrumental color, ... a newly expressive and unfettered vocal writing"[24] was praised, andThe Guardian's critic remarked "Glass has a real affinity for the French text and sets the words eloquently, underpinning them with delicately patterned instrumental textures".[65]
For the second opera,La Belle et la Bête (1994, scored for either the Philip Glass Ensemble or a more conventional chamber orchestra), Glass replaced the soundtrack (includingGeorges Auric's film music) of Cocteau's film, wrote "a new fully operatic score and synchronize[d] it with the film".[25] This reimagining of a score took what had been common in turning opera into film and turned it on its head, turning film into opera. This brought the music that would otherwise be subordinate to the film to the forefront so that the two were equal with each other; taking a new spin on an old tradition.[66] The final part of the triptych returned again to a more traditional setting with the "Dance Opera"Les Enfants terribles (1996), scored for voices, three pianos and dancers, with choreography bySusan Marshall. The characters are depicted by both singers and dancers. The scoring of the opera evokes Bach'sConcerto for Four Harpsichords, but in another way also "the snow, which falls relentlessly throughout the opera ... bearing witness to the unfolding events. Here time stands still. There is only music, and the movement of children through space" (Glass).[67][68]
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Glass's lyrical and romantic styles peaked with a variety of projects: operas, theatre and film scores (Martin Scorsese'sKundun, 1997,Godfrey Reggio'sNaqoyqatsi, 2002, andStephen Daldry'sThe Hours, 2002), a series of five concerts, and three symphonies centered on orchestra-singer and orchestra-chorus interplay. Two symphonies,Symphony No. 5 "Choral" (1999) andSymphony No. 7 "Toltec" (2004), and the song cycleSongs ofMilarepa (1997) have a meditative theme. The operatic Symphony No. 6Plutonian Ode (2002) for soprano and orchestra was commissioned by the Brucknerhaus, Linz, andCarnegie Hall in celebration of Glass's sixty-fifth birthday, and developed from Glass's collaboration withAllen Ginsberg (poet, piano—Ginsberg, Glass), based on his poem of the same name.
Besides writing for the concert hall, Glass continued his ongoing operatic series with adaptions from literary texts:The Marriages of Zones 3, 4 and 5 ([1997] story-libretto by Doris Lessing),In the Penal Colony (2000, after thestory byFranz Kafka), and the chamber operaThe Sound of a Voice (2003, with David Henry Hwang), which features thePipa, performed byWu Man at its premiere. Glass also collaborated again with the co-author ofEinstein on the Beach,Robert Wilson, onMonsters of Grace (1998), and created a biographicopera on the life of astronomer Galileo Galilei (2001).
In the early 2000s, Glass started a series of five concerti with theTirol Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (2000, premiered byDennis Russell Davies as conductor and soloist), and theConcerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra (2000, for the timpanist Jonathan Haas). TheConcerto for Cello and Orchestra (2001) had its premiere performance in Beijing, featuring cellistJulian Lloyd Webber; it was composed in celebration of his fiftieth birthday.[69] These concertos were followed by the concise and rigorously neo-BaroqueConcerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (2002), demonstrating in its transparent, chamber orchestral textures Glass's classical technique, evocative in the "improvisatory chords" of its beginning atoccata ofFroberger orFrescobaldi, and 18th century music.[70] Two years later, the concerti series continued withPiano Concerto No. 2: After Lewis and Clark (2004), composed for the pianistPaul Barnes. The concerto celebrates the pioneers' trek across North America, and the second movement features a duet for piano andNative American flute. With the chamber operaThe Sound of a Voice, Glass's Piano Concerto No. 2 might be regarded as bridging his traditional compositions and his more popular excursions toWorld Music, also found inOrion (also composed in 2004).
Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera fromJ. M. Coetzee'snovel (with the libretto byChristopher Hampton), had its premiere performance in September 2005. Glass defined the work as a "social/political opera", as a critique on theBush administration'swar in Iraq, a "dialogue about politicalcrisis", and an illustration of the "power of art to turn our attention toward the human dimension of history".[71] While the opera's themes areImperialism,apartheid, andtorture, the composer chose an understated approach by using "very simple means, and theorchestration is very clear and very traditional; it's almostclassical in sound", as the conductor Dennis Russell Davies notes.[72][73]
Two months after the premiere of this opera, in November 2005, Glass'sSymphony No. 8, commissioned by theBruckner Orchestra Linz, was premiered at theBrooklyn Academy of Music in New York City. After three symphonies for voices and orchestra, this piece was a return to purely orchestral and abstract composition; like previous works written for the conductor Dennis Russell Davies (the 1992Concerto Grosso and the 1995 Symphony No. 3), it features extended solo writing. CriticAllan Kozinn described the symphony'schromaticism as more extreme, more fluid, and its themes and textures as continually changing, morphing without repetition, and praised the symphony's "unpredictable orchestration", pointing out the "beautiful flute andharp variation in the melancholy second movement".[74]Alex Ross, remarked that "against all odds, this work succeeds in adding something certifiably new to the overstuffed annals of the classical symphony. ... The musical material is cut from familiar fabric, but it's striking that the composer forgoes the expected bustling conclusion and instead delves into a mood of deepening twilight and unending night."[75]
The Passion of Ramakrishna (2006), was composed for thePacific Symphony orchestra, the Pacific Chorale and the conductorCarl St. Clair. The 45 minutes choral work is based on the writings of Indian spiritual leaderRamakrishna, which seem "to have genuinely inspired and revived the composer out of his old formulas to write something fresh", as one critic remarked, whereas another noted "The musical style breaks little new ground for Glass, except for the gloriousHandelian ending ... the composer's style ideally fits the devotional text".[76][77]
A cello suite, composed for the cellistWendy Sutter,Songs and Poems for Solo Cello (2005–2007), was equally lauded by critics. It was described by Lisa Hirsch as "a major work, ... a major addition to the cello repertory" and "deeply Romantic in spirit, and at the same time deeplyBaroque".[78] Another critic,Anne Midgette ofThe Washington Post, noted the suite "maintains an unusual degree of directness and warmth"; she also noted a kinship to a major work byJohann Sebastian Bach: "Digging into the lower registers of the instrument, it takes flight in handfuls of notes, now gentle, now impassioned, variously evoking the minor-mode keening ofklezmer music and the interior meditations ofBach's cello suites".[79] Glass himself pointed out "in many ways it owes more to Schubert than to Bach".[80]
In 2007, Glass also worked alongsideLeonard Cohen on an adaptation of Cohen's poetry collectionBook of Longing. The work, which premiered in June 2007 in Toronto, is a piece for seven instruments and a vocal quartet, and contains recorded spoken word performances by Cohen and imagery from his collection.
Appomattox, an opera surrounding the events at the end of the American Civil War, was commissioned by theSan Francisco Opera and premiered on October 5, 2007. As inWaiting for the Barbarians, Glass collaborated with the writerChristopher Hampton, and as with the preceding opera and Symphony No. 8, the piece was conducted by Glass's long-time collaborator Dennis Russell Davies, who noted "in his recent operas the bass line has taken on an increasing prominence,... (an) increasing use of melodic elements in the deep register, in thecontrabass, thecontrabassoon—he's increasingly using these sounds and these textures can be derived from using these instruments in different combinations. ... He's definitely developed more skill as an orchestrator, in his ability to conceive melodies and harmonic structures for specific instrumental groups. ... what he gives them to play is very organic and idiomatic."[73]
Apart from this large-scale opera, Glass added a work to his catalogue of theater music in 2007, and continuing—after a gap of twenty years—to write music for the dramatic work of Samuel Beckett. He provided a "hypnotic" original score for a compilation of Beckett's short playsAct Without Words I,Act Without Words II,Rough for Theatre I andEh Joe, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis and premiered in December 2007. Glass's work for this production was described byThe New York Times as "icy, repetitive music that comes closest to piercing the heart".[81]
2008–present: Chamber music, concertos, and symphonies
Between 2008 and 2010, Glass continued to work on a series of chamber music pieces which started withSongs and Poems: theFour Movements for Two Pianos (2008, premiered by Dennis Russell Davies andMaki Namekawa in July 2008), aSonata for Violin and Piano composed in "theBrahms tradition" (completed in 2008, premiered by violinist Maria Bachman and pianist Jon Klibonoff in February 2009); aString sextet (an adaption of the Symphony No. 3 of 1995 made by Glass's musical director Michael Riesman) followed in 2009.Pendulum (2010, a one-movement piece for violin and piano), a second Suite of cello pieces for Wendy Sutter (2011), andPartita for solo violin for violinist Tim Fain (2010, first performance of the complete work 2011), are recent entries in the series.[82]
Other works for the theater were a score forEuripides'The Bacchae (2009, directed byJoAnne Akalaitis), andKepler (2009), yet another operatic biography of a scientist or explorer. The opera is based on the life of 17th century astronomerJohannes Kepler, against the background of theThirty Years' War, with a libretto compiled from Kepler's texts and poems by his contemporaryAndreas Gryphius. It is Glass's first opera in German, and was premiered by theBruckner Orchestra Linz and Dennis Russell Davies in September 2009. LA Times criticMark Swed and others described the work as "oratorio-like"; Swed pointed out the work is Glass's "most chromatic, complex, psychological score" and "the orchestra dominates ... I was struck by the muted, glowing colors, the character of many orchestral solos and the poignant emphasis on bass instruments".[83]
In 2009 and 2010, Glass returned to the concerto genre.Violin Concerto No. 2 in four movements was commissioned by violinistRobert McDuffie, and subtitled "The American Four Seasons" (2009), as an homage toVivaldi's set of concertosThe Four Seasons. It premiered in December 2009 by theToronto Symphony Orchestra, and was subsequently performed by theLondon Philharmonic Orchestra in April 2010.[84] The Double Concerto for Violin and Cello and Orchestra (2010) was composed for soloists Maria Bachmann and Wendy Sutter and also as a ballet score for theNederlands Dans Theater.[85][86] Other orchestral projects of 2010 are short orchestral scores for films; to a multimedia presentation based on the novelIcarus at the Edge of Time bytheoretical physicistBrian Greene, which premiered on June 6, 2010, and the score for the Brazilian filmNosso Lar (released in Brazil on September 3, 2010). Glass also donated a short work,Brazil, to the video gameChime, which was released on February 3, 2010.
In August 2011, Glass presented a series of music, dance, and theater performances as part of the Days and Nights Festival.[87] Along with the Philip Glass Ensemble, scheduled performers includeMolissa Fenley and Dancers,John Moran withSaori Tsukada, as well as a screening ofDracula with Glass's score.[88]
Other works completed since 2010 includeSymphony No. 9 (2010–2011),Symphony No. 10 (2012), Cello Concerto No. 2 (2012, based on the film score toNaqoyqatsi) as well as String Quartet No. 6 and No. 7. Glass's Ninth Symphony was co-commissioned by the Bruckner Orchestra Linz, theAmerican Composers Orchestra and theLos Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The symphony's first performance took place on January 1, 2012, at theBrucknerhaus in Linz, Austria (Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Bruckner Orchestra Linz); the American premiere was on January 31, 2012, (Glass's 75th birthday), at Carnegie Hall (Dennis Russell Davies conducting the American Composers Orchestra), and the West Coast premiere with theLos Angeles Philharmonic under the baton ofJohn Adams on April 5.[89] Glass's Tenth Symphony, written in five movements, was commissioned by theOrchestre français des jeunes for its 30th anniversary. The symphony's first performance took place on August 9, 2012, at theGrand Théâtre de Provence inAix-en-Provence under Dennis Russell Davies.[90][91][92][93]The operaThe Perfect American was composed in 2011 to a commission fromTeatro Real Madrid.[94] The libretto is based on a book of the same name byPeter Stephan Jungk and covers the final months of the life ofWalt Disney.[95] The world premiere was at the Teatro Real, Madrid, on January 22, 2013, with BritishbaritoneChristopher Purves taking the role of Disney.[95] The UK premiere took place on June 1, 2013, in a production by theEnglish National Opera at theLondon Coliseum.[96] The US premiere took place on March 12, 2017, in a production byLong Beach Opera.[97] It was met withmixed to negative reviews.[98][99][100]
His operaThe Lost [fr], based on a play by Austrian playwright and novelistPeter Handke,Die Spuren der Verirrten (2007), premiered at the Musiktheater Linz in April 2013, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies and directed byDavid Pountney.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Glass continued composing, with three major works for opera and symphony premiering in 2021 and 2022. Glass' operaCircus Days and Nights was commissioned by Cirkus Cirkor.[110] The libretto byDavid Henry Hwang and Tilde Björfors is based on a book of poems byRobert Lax. The world premiere was at theMalmö Opera on May 29, 2021.[111] Glass's Symphony No. 14 was premiered by the LGT Young Soloists at theRoyal College of Music in London on September 17, 2021. The work was commissioned by the orchestra.[112]Glass's Symphony No. 13 was premiered by theNational Arts Centre Orchestra underAlexander Shelley at theRoy Thomson Hall in Toronto on March 30, 2022. Commissioned by the orchestra, the work was written as a tribute to Canadian journalistPeter Jennings.[113]
On November 7, 2023, Glass andArtisan Books releasedPhilip Glass Piano Etudes: The Complete Folios 1–20 & Essays from Fellow Artists a nine-pound deluxe boxed set of Glass' piano etudes andStudies in Time: Essays on the Music of Philip Glass.[114]
Glass had begun[clarification needed] using theFarfisa portable organ out of convenience,[126] and he has used it in concert.[127] It is featured on several recordings includingNorth Star[128] andDance Nos. 1–5.[129][130]
Glass has composed many film scores, starting with the orchestral score forKoyaanisqatsi (1982), and continuing with two biopics,Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985, resulting in the String Quartet No. 3) andKundun (1997) about theDalai Lama, for which he received his firstAcademy Award nomination. In 1968, he composed and conducted the score for director Harrison Engle's minimalist comedy short,Railroaded, played by the Philip Glass Ensemble. This was one of his earliest film efforts.
The year after scoringHamburger Hill (1987), Glass began a long collaboration with the filmmakerErrol Morris with his music for Morris's celebrated documentaries, includingThe Thin Blue Line (1988) andA Brief History of Time (1991).[131] He continued composing for theQatsi trilogy with the scores forPowaqqatsi (1988) andNaqoyqatsi (2002). In 1995, he composed the theme forReggio's short independent filmEvidence. He made a cameo appearance—briefly visible performing at the piano—inPeter Weir'sThe Truman Show (1998), which uses music fromPowaqqatsi,Anima Mundi andMishima, as well as three original tracks by Glass. In the 1990s, he also composed scores forBent (1997) and the supernatural horror filmCandyman (1992) and its sequel,Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995), plus a film adaptation ofJoseph Conrad'sThe Secret Agent (1996).
In 1999, he finished a new soundtrack for the 1931 filmDracula.The Hours (2002) earned him a second Academy Award nomination. The circular, recurring nature of Glass's music has been praised for providing stability and contrast to frequent jumps across time and geography in the film's narrative. In this way, the soundtrack has a distinctive personality, so much so that director Stephen Daldry believes Glass's music serves as "another stream of consciousness, another character"[132] in the film.The Hours was followed by another Morris documentary,The Fog of War (2003). In the mid-2000s, Glass provided the scores to films such asSecret Window (2004),Neverwas (2005),The Illusionist andNotes on a Scandal, garnering his third Academy Award nomination for the latter. Glass's most recent film scores includeNo Reservations (Glass makes a brief cameo in the film sitting at an outdoor café),Cassandra's Dream (2007),Les Regrets (2009),Mr Nice (2010), the Brazilian filmNosso Lar (2010) andFantastic Four (2015, in collaboration withMarco Beltrami). In 2009, Glass composed original theme music forTranscendent Man, about the life and ideas ofRay Kurzweil by filmmakerBarry Ptolemy.
In the 2000s, Glass's work from the 1980s again became known to wider public through various media. In 2005, his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1987) was featured in the French filmThe Moustache, providing a tone intentionally incongruous to the banality of the movie's plot.[133]Metamorphosis: Metamorphosis One fromSolo Piano (1989) was featured in thereimaginedBattlestar Galactica in the episode "Valley of Darkness"[134] and also in the final episode ("return 0") ofPerson of Interest. In 2008,Rockstar Games releasedGrand Theft Auto IV featuring Glass's "Pruit Igoe" (fromKoyaanisqatsi). "Pruit Igoe" and "Prophecies" (also fromKoyaanisqatsi) were used both in a trailer forWatchmen and in the film itself.Watchmen also included two other Glass pieces in the score: "Something She Has To Do" fromThe Hours and "Protest" fromSatyagraha, act 2, scene 3. In 2013, Glass contributed a piano piece "Duet" to thePark Chan-wook filmStoker which is performed diegetically in the film.[135][136] Glass contributed compositions to the feature documentary "The General & Me" by filmmakerTiana Alexandra-Silliphant, which was showcased at Glass's "Days and Nights Festival" in 2017.[137] In 2017, Glass scored theNational Geographic Films documentaryJane (a documentary on the life of renowned BritishprimatologistJane Goodall).
For television, Glass composed the theme forNight Stalker (2005) and the soundtrack forTales from the Loop (2020). Glass's "Confrontation and Rescue" (fromSatyagraha) was used in the ending ofSeason 3 Chapter 6 ofStranger Things (2019), whilst "Window of Appearances", "Akhnaten and Nefertiti" (fromAkhnaten) and "Prophecies" (fromKoyaanisqatsi) were used in the finale ofSeason 4 Volume 1 (2022).
In 1977, Glass formed a music publisher and management company namedDunvagen Music Publishers.[138] The company still represents his publishing and management interests today.[139]
In 1970, Glass andKlaus Kertess (owner of theBykert Gallery) formed a record label namedChatham Square Productions afterthe location of the studio of a Philip Glass Ensemble member Dick Landry.[30] In 1993, Glass formed another record label, Point Music; in 1997, Point Music releasedMusic for Airports, a live, instrumental version of Eno's composition of the same name, byBang on a Can All-Stars. In 2002, Glass and his producer Kurt Munkacsi and artist Don Christensen founded the Orange Mountain Music company, dedicated to "establishing the recording legacy of Philip Glass" and, to date, have released sixty albums of Glass's music.
In 1992, Glass built his own recording studio in New York City and named it Looking Glass Studios. In addition to Glass' own recording projects, the studio hosted recording projects of notable artists including Beck, Bjork, Sheryl Crow, The Cure, Grace Jones, Lou Reed, and Roger Waters before its closure in February 2009.[140]
Glass has been married four times; he has four children and one granddaughter.
His first marriage was to theater directorJoAnne Akalaitis (m. 1965, div. 1980), with whom he has two children: Juliet (b. 1968) and Zachary (b. 1971).
His second marriage was to Luba Burtyk (m. 1980), a physician.[144][145]
His third wife, the artistCandy Jernigan, died of liver cancer in 1991, aged 39.
Glass's fourth marriage was to restaurant manager,Holly Critchlow (m. in 2001). They later divorced.[15] They had two sons, Cameron (b. 2002) and Marlowe (b. 2003).
He was romantically involved with cellist Wendy Sutter for approximately five years.[146][147] As of December 2018[update], his partner was Japanese-born dancerSaori Tsukada.[148][149]
Glass is thefirst cousin once removed ofIra Glass, host of the radio showThis American Life.[150] Ira interviewed Glass onstage at Chicago'sField Museum; this interview was broadcast onNPR'sFresh Air. Ira interviewed Glass a second time at a fundraiser forSt. Ann's Warehouse; this interview was given away to public-radio listeners as a pledge-drive thank-you gift in 2010. Ira and Glass recorded a version of the composition Glass wrote to accompany his friendAllen Ginsberg's poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra". In 2014,This American Life broadcast a live performance at theBrooklyn Academy of Music that included the world premier of the operaHelp, a shortmonodrama that Philip Glass wrote for the occasion.[151]
Musical Opinion said, "Philip Glass must be one of the most influential living composers."[152] TheNational Endowment for the Arts, while noting that many of his operas have been produced by the world's leading opera houses said, "He is the first composer to win a wide, multigenerational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film, and in popular music."[153]Classical Music Review called his operaAkhnaten "a musically sophisticated and imposing work".[154] The New YorkMetropolitan Opera's production ofAkhnaten won theGrammy Award for Best Opera Recording in 2022.[155]
Justin Davidson ofNew York magazine has criticized Glass, saying, "Glass never had a good idea he didn't flog to death: He repeats the haunting scale 30 mind-numbing times, until it's long past time to go home."[156]Richard Schickel ofTime criticized Glass's score forThe Hours, saying, "This ultimately proves insufficient to lend meaning to their lives or profundity to a grim and uninvolving film, for which Philip Glass unwittingly provides the perfect score—tuneless, oppressive, droning, painfully self-important."[157]
Glass, Philip (1987).Music by Philip Glass. Edited and with supplementary material by Robert T. Jones (1st ed.). New York:Harper & Row.ISBN0-06-015823-9.OCLC15521553.
Reprinted in 1995 byDa Capo Press (ISBN978-0-306-80636-0) with the addition of a new foreword by Glass and an updated music catalog and discography with 52 black & white photographs.[193]
With Brumbach, Linda; Regas, Alisa E. (2023).Philip Glass Piano Etudes: The Complete Folios 1-20 & Essays from 20 Fellow Artists. New York:Artisan Books.ISBN978-1648291883.
^Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia (2000), "Glass, Philip," Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., p. 659. There, Glass is described as "today perhaps the world's most famous living composer."
^Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia (2000), "Glass, Philip," Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc., p. 659. There, Glass is described as "today perhaps the world's most famous living composer."
^Biography, PhilipGlass.com, archived fromthe original on August 4, 2013, retrievedNovember 10, 2008,The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed "minimalism". Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to speak of himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures". Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry.
^Glass in conversation with Chuck Close and William Bartman, in, Joanne Kesten (ed.), The Portraits Speak: Chuck Close in conversation with 27 of his subjects, A.R.T. Press, New York, 1997, p. 170
^Zwiebach, Michael (October 7, 2006),"Arrested Development",San Francisco Classical Voice, archived fromthe original on September 21, 2008, retrievedNovember 11, 2008
^Philip Glass, booklet notes to the 1996/1997 recording ofLes Enfants terribles, Orange Mountain Music, 2005
^Hirsch, Lisa (September 28, 2007),"Chambered Glass",San Francisco Classical Voice, archived fromthe original on June 16, 2008, retrievedNovember 11, 2008
Maycock, Robert (2002).Glass: A Biography of Philip Glass. Sanctuary Publishing.ISBN978-1-86074-347-4.
Potter, Keith (2000).Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. Music in the Twentieth Century series. Cambridge, UK; New York City: Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-48250-9.
Schwarz, K. Robert (1996).Minimalists. 20th-Century Composers Series. London: Phaidon Press.ISBN978-0-7148-3381-1.
Bartman, William and Kesten, Joanne (eds).The Portraits Speak: Chuck Close in Conversation with 27 of his subjects, New York: A.R.T. Press, 1997.ISBN978-0-923183-18-9.
Duckworth, William (1995, 1999).Talking Music: Conversations With John Cage, Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, and Five Generations of American Experimental Composers. New York City: Da Capo Press.ISBN978-0-306-80893-7 (1999 edition).
Gagne, Cole and Caras, Tracy (1982).Soundpieces: Interviews with American Composers. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.ISBN0-8108-1474-9
Knowlson, James (2004).Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett, New York: Grove Press.ISBN978-0-8021-4125-5.
Lucier, Alvin, ed. (2018).Eight Lectures on Experimental Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.ISBN9780819577634
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