Glass Notes

Ballets, Misc

The PhilipGlass.com performance calendar is a good resource for performances but by and large most of the ballet performances (hundreds of performances) are not listed there.  This is for a couple reasons - first is that frequently ballet companies perform to recordings and not live music.  Secondly when the performances are worked out with the publishers, they get the right to a number of performances, 10 for example, and don't necessarily communicate back as to when those performances will take place - it might be 10 performances spread over three years.

This is to say that things sneak up on me when not widely publicized or found through the normal channels.

This week, the Pacific Northwest Ballet is performing/performed "In the Upper Room," the Cincinnati Ballet, building on the recent Glass activity in Cincy which included his Creative Directorship at the Cincinnati Symphony and this summer's Cincy Opera's performance of his opera Galileo, performed a work with Glass music, and I see the Boston Ballet will perform the Chuck Close ballet "C. to C." next season.

In other news the Library of Congress has taken 25 recordings into its archives. This round of inductees includes the early recording of Einstein on the Beach.

And the new recording of The Hours/Symphony No.3 is reviewed in Opus One.

 

Q2: Album of the Week

Inadvance of its release next week, WQXR's Q2 has named the new recording "Glass: Cello Concerto No.2 "Naqoyqatsi" album of the week.  You can listen to the album in its entirety on soundcloud.

Philip Glass and Sally Whitwell's visceral, flowing music

Interesting Events: the CIVIL warS

Los Angeles Philharmonic 2013-14 Season

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Thursday, April 17, 2014, at 8 PM

Saturday, April 19, 2014, at 8 PM

MINIMALIST JUKEBOX

Grant Gershon, conductor

Los Angeles Master Chorale Grant Gershon, music director

Philip GLASS the CIVIL warS, ACT V: the Rome Section

Reviews

The Toronto Star reviews the new Manitoba Chamber Orchestra recording on OMM

and The NY Times reviews Toltec at Carnegie Hall.

And the film Stoker has been released, also a soundtrack which has an original Glass piece on it.

OMM New Release: Manitoba Chamber Orchestra - Riesman, Manson

"Two of my favorite collaborators working together" says Philip Glass of this new album from OMM featuring the Manitoba Chamber Orchestra with its music director Anne Manson and pianist Michael Riesman.  Manson, who recently recorded the Glass opera Orphée for OMM, which was produced by long-time Glass producer and Philip Glass Ensemble Music Director Michael Riesman, asked Riesman to collaborate on a performance tour in Canada with her orchestra. 

The result is (finally) a proper recording of THE HOURS suite with Riesman on piano.  He had been the pianist on the original soundtrack recording.  The second part of the album showcases the strings of the MCO in a performance of Glass' Third Symphony.

I would have mentioned this release yesterday, the proper release date, however I was preoccupied with the Toltec Symphony at Carnegie Hall.

Here it is on iTunes and Amazon.

The Examiner is the first review of the new recording. "These are highly sensitive interpretations of Glass’ music, and Orange Mountain Music has done a great service by making the concert at which they were performed available as a recording."

Conductor James Bagwell & Philip Glass - Toltec Interview

James Bagwell: What prompted you to write this symphony, especially one that uses chorus and how did the traditions and influences of ancient Mesoamericans influence your work on this symphony?

Philip Glass: I have been visiting Mexico for many years, sometimes in the big cities but often in remote areas. One such visit, I was given a recording of a Marakame (mara'kame), who would be a singer and story teller of the indigenous people who still live today in Northern Mexico.  It was a recording of an elderly man singing words that I couldn't understand, firstly because it was an indigenous language and secondly because had no teeth. I based the second movement of the symphony on this recording.  I imagined as best I could the actual syllables he was singing and the sounds he was making. That became the text of the second movement.

JB: How did the traditions and influences of ancient Mesoamericans influence your work on this symphony?

PG: Later I connected that piece with in the context of three elements that are important in the traditional life of the indigenous people still living in that area of Mexico:  The corn, the Sacred Root, and the Blue Deer.  Each is represented in the movements.

JB: How long did the composition process take and what prompted you to incorporate chorus into your work?

PG: Well I began writing music when I was 15, and I wrote this symphony in 2004, so 67 years! (laughs).  That happens to be truthful!  I sang in choruses when I was still a student at Juilliard.  And from those experiences and from earlier times, when I was 10 years old when I played in things like church orchestras and sang in choruses that were performing the masses of Bach and Mozart.  After Juilliard I had a lot of personal experiences in singing in choruses. I drew mainly on my own experience to have my own personal approach to writing for choruses.

JB: The Collegiate Chorale has been performing quite a bit of your music recently, from the performance of the opera The Juniper Tree, to Koyaanisqatsi, to Another Look at Harmony, Part IV, and now A Toltec Symphony.

I've known (you) and the chorus for a long time. They are excellent.  This piece was originally written for the 60th birthday of Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra in 2005.  The Collegiate Chorale knows my music well, sing it very well, and I'm pleased that they have chosen this piece to perform in its NY premiere.

Getting Excited for Toltec

Collegiate Chorale/Signed CD giveaway

In addition to next week's performance of Symphony No.7 "Toltec" in its NY Premiere, the Collegiate Chorale is giving away a number of signed Toltec CDs through its Twitter feed.

Philip Glass: Art Belongs to All of Us