March 22, 2024 • 12:23 pm Comments Off on Lessons in Chemistry: The Complete Etudes of Philip Glass by Five in LA
An unforgettable evening this week spent with the Complete Etudes of Philip Glass, presented by Pomegranate Arts at Walt Disney Concert Hall as part of the Los Angeles Phiharmonic Green Umbrella series:
LOS ANGELES — The tradition of etudes for solo piano, by definition and connotation, evokes a single performer embarked on a Gradus ad Parnassum, a lonely and sometimes Sisyphean pilgrimage toward elusive perfection.
Filed under: Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philip Glass, piano, review
February 29, 2024 • 7:46 am Comments Off on Philip Glass: Solo
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My Gramophone review of Philip Glass’s recent release has been posted:
‘If I’m to be remembered for anything’, Philip Glass has remarked, ‘it will probably be for the piano music, because people can play it.’ …
Filed under: CD review, Gramophone, Philip Glass, piano
May 22, 2022 • 5:43 am 1
The Metropolitan Opera has revived its splendid production of Philip Glass’s Akhnaten. Joshua Barone writes: “There were, though, some crucial differences from 2019. Phelim McDermott’s production, now more lived-in, unfolded with elegant inevitability rather than effort; the score was executed with a clarity and drive absent on the often slack album. And while “Akhnaten” may be one of Glass’s tributes to great men who changed the world — through science, politics and faith — Thursday’s performance of it made a persuasive argument for where the real power lies: with the women.”
Here’s my program note:
Filed under: Metropolitan Opera, Philip Glass, program notes
January 6, 2021 • 12:31 pm Comments Off on Metamorphosis by Third Coast Percussion
Grammy Award-winning Third Coast Percussion (TCP) presents a re-broadcast of the world premiere performance of Metamorphosis, originally presented by La Jolla Music Society at the Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center on November 7, 2020. The stream is being made available free-of-charge on Friday, 8 January 2020 at 8:30 p.m. ET via TCP’s YouTube channel.
Metamorphosis offers a dynamic artistic collaboration by blending street dance and percussion ensemble performance. Choreography by Movement Art Is co-founders Jon Boogz and Lil Buck is featured alongside new music composed by Jlin and Tyondai Braxton and TCP’s acclaimed arrangements of Philip Glass’s Aguas da Amazonia. Movement artists Ron Myles and Quentin Robinson joined TCP members on stage for the debut of this program, which had been in the making for more than a year.
Program:
Philip Glass (arr. by Third Coast Percussion) – Metamorphosis
Jlin – Perspective
Tyondai Braxton – Sunny X
Philip Glass (arr. by Third Coast Percussion) – Amazon River
Movement by Ron Myles and Quentin Robinson
Choreography by Movement Art Is (Jon Boogz and Lil Buck)
Lighting design by Joe Burke
Stage direction by Leslie Buxbaum Danzig
Filed under: music news, Philip Glass, Third Coast Percussion
June 17, 2020 • 7:35 am Comments Off on Philip Glass’s Akhnaten at the Met
The Metropolitan Opera’s nightly streams include some really special offerings this coming weekend, both of which are being made available to the public for the first time on the Met’s streaming platform — these are not available in the Met on Demand Video and Audio Catalogue. These are Satyagraha and Akhnaten, two of the operas from Philip Glass’s “Portrait Trilogy.” Both are in the productions brilliantly directed by Phelim McDermott. Karen Kamensek conducts the performance of Akhnaten given last fall on 23 November 2019.
Here’s my program essay for Akhnaten to help prepare for the stream on Saturday 20 June 2020:
On January 6, 1907, the entrance to a rock-cut tomb was uncovered in
the Valley of the Kings outside modern-day Luxor, Egypt. The mummy
safeguarded within may have been the preserved body of the pharaoh
Akhnaten (today more commonly known as Akhenaten). Rigorous DNA testing
conducted in 2010 was reported to have confirmed that identification, though
the matter remains hotly contested—like just about everything else associated
with this most controversial of ancient Egypt’s vast lineage of rulers.
UPDATE: The documentary by Michael Blackwood that I mention — A Composer’s Notes: Philip Glass and the Making of an Opera — is unfortunately no longer available on YouTube but has been released on DVD by Glass’s label Orange Mountain and can also be found on Amazon Prime here.
continue (starts on p. 10)
Click to access 112319-akhnaten.pdf
Filed under: Metropolitan Opera, Phelim McDermott, Philip Glass
November 9, 2019 • 7:43 am Comments Off on Philip Glass’s Ahknaten at the Met
Ahknaten — in my opinion, one of Philip Glass’s greatest works — opened last night in Phelim McDermott’s excellent production at the Met. I was honored to have the opportunity to write the program note (starts on p. 40B of the attached Playbill).
On January 6, 1907, the entrance to a rock-cut tomb was uncovered in
the Valley of the Kings outside modern-day Luxor, Egypt. The mummy
safeguarded within may have been the preserved body of the pharaoh
Akhnaten (today more commonly spelled Akhenaten) …
Filed under: Metropolitan Opera, Phelim McDermott, Philip Glass, program notes
October 17, 2018 • 11:43 am 1
My article on the production of Philip Glass’s sublime Satyagraha is here (starting p. 24).
The production, directed by Phelim McDermott and conducted by Grant Gershon, runs till November 11. (Video above from its first staging at English National Opera.)
Filed under: essay, Grant Gershon, Phelim McDermott, Philip Glass
January 31, 2018 • 12:12 am Comments Off on Happy Birthday, Philip Glass
January 18, 2018 • 11:04 am Comments Off on Simone Dinnerstein: Glass + Schubert
Sorry not to be in town to be able to attend Simone Dinnerstein’s program tonight at Miller Theatre. She talks about her thinking behind this pairing of Glass and Schubert in my essay for the program:
Affinities and Alliances: Simone Dinnerstein Performs Glass + Schubert
By happy coincidence, this month ends with a double birthday: January 31 is the day on which Philip Glass and Franz Schubert were born. And while, chronologically speaking, 140 years separate the two composers, the affinities between them are striking. Glass grew up surrounded by classical music in heavy rotation in his father’s record store in Baltimore and found himself drawn to Schubert in particular.
continue reading
Filed under: Philip Glass, piano, Schubert, Simone Dinnerstein
January 31, 2017 • 12:00 am Comments Off on Philip Glass at 80
The tyrants, war-mongers, and profiteers come and go, as predictable as they are destructive: and they make life hell for all around them.
But it’s possible to feel hope when we consider the immense power that comes from creative personalities who use their gifts to radiate what’s best in humanity. All the more reason to take stock of how our artists and performers so generously enhance our lives with their creative contributions.
A very happy 80th birthday indeed to the marvelous, magnanimous Philip Glass. He has changed the way we listen to music, opening up new vistas of perception and beauty.
A handy list of upcoming events to mark Glass at 80 is here on the composer’s website.
From my recent essay for Los Angeles Opera on their moving production of Akhnaten directed by Phelim McDermott:
Numbers, chanted in hypnotic patterns, set the stage for Philip Glass’s first opera, Einstein on the Beach, and the very idea of numbers underlies the revolution depicted in his third, Akhnaten: the monotheistic revolution instigated by the opera’s pharaoh-protagonist, who fatefully attempts to replace ancient Egypt’s traditional polytheistic order with the one god Aten.
Filed under: new music, Philip Glass
Arts & Culture Stories from NPR
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 