Philip Glass's 75th Birthday Season Continues With Worldwide Events

Composer Philip Glass continues to celebrate his 75th birthday with an anniversary season featuring performances 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.

Having begun in August with the inaugural Days and Nights Festival in Carmel Valley, CA, the 75th anniversary season has seen the first ever performance of a Glass piece by the New York Philharmonic (Koyaanisqatsi), a reprise of Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera and the world premiere of Glass' Symphony No. 9 by Bruckner Orchestra Linz in Austria. The season continues on through 2012 with the U.S. premiere of Symphony No. 9 at New York's Carnegie Hall on Glass' 75th birthday (January 31) by the American Composers Orchestra; 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 for 2012 in Montpellier, France in March 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 in 2012. Glass is also the subject of a Beck-produced remix project, featuring contributions from Beck himself as well as Tyondai Braxton, Amon Tobin, Cornelius, Johann Johannsson, Nosaj Thing, Memory Tapes, Silver Alert and others.

About Glass: "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."

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