University Communications Pianist, Composer Philip Glass To Give Solo Piano Concert At Emory April 15 WHO: Pianist and composer Philip Glass WHAT: Solo piano concert, part of Music at Emory's NextFest series WHEN: 8:15 p.m. Saturday, April 15 WHERE: Performing Arts Studio, 1804 N. Decatur Rd., Emory. COST: $25. For information or to order tickets, call 404-727-5050, or send e-mail to boxoffice@emory.edu. Free parking will be available in the parking deck behind Emory Law School at the corner of N. Decatur and Clifton roads (enter off of Clifton Rd.). PROGRAM: "Etudes" (1994-1995), "Four Metamorphoses" (1989), "Mad Rush" (1980), "The Fourth Knee Play" (1976), "Satyagraha" (1980) and "The Screens" (1988) Acclaimed composer and musician Philip Glass will perform new arrangements of some of his well-known pieces in his solo concert at Emory University on Saturday, April 15. The concert is part of Music at Emory's NextFest series. A native of Baltimore, Glass grew up listening to then-offbeat music in his father's radio repair shop: recordings of the great chamber works, including Beethoven quartets, Schubert sonatas, Shostakovich symphonies. It was not until he was in his upper teens that Glass listened to more standard classics. Glass began studying music at age six and during his second year in high school, he applied for admission to the University of Chicago. He moved to Chicago where he supported himself with part-time jobs waiting tables and loading airplanes. He majored in mathematics and philosophy, and in off hours practiced piano and concentrated on such composers as Ives and Webern. At 19, Glass graduated from the University of Chicago, and, determined to become a composer, moved to New York and the Juilliard School. He went on to study under a number of significant composers, including Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Glass' traditional musical training and composition were forever changed in the mid-1960s when he was hired by a filmmaker to transcribe the Indian music of Ravi Shankar in notation readable to French musicians. He researched international music, including that of North Africa, India and the Himalayas, and began applying the techniques to his own work. Highlights of the period include "Music in 12 Parts," a three-hour summation of Glass' new music, and the 1976 Philip Glass/Robert Wilson opera "Einstein on the Beach," the four-and-a- half-hour epic now seen as a landmark in 20th-century music-theater. This work, the first in Glass' 'portrait' trilogy, was followed by "Satyagraha," created for the Netherlands Opera in 1980, and "Akhnaten" for the Stuttgart Opera in 1984. Other operas and music theater works include "The Photographer" (1980), "the CIVIL warS" (1984), "The Juniper Tree" (1986), "The Making of the Representative for Planet 8" (1988), "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1988), "Hydrogen Jukebox" (1990), "The Voyage" (1992) commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera in honor of Columbus, and a chamber opera "Orphée" (1993) based on the film by Jean Cocteau. Glass also is known for his collaborations with some of the major figures in today's dance world, including Twyla Tharp and Lucinda Childs ("A Descent into the Maelstrom," "In the Upper Room"). In 1988, Glass made his directing debut with the science fiction music drama "1000 Airplanes on the Roof," written with David Henry Hwang. He also has composed music for an eclectic group of films, including Gedfrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi," Paul Schrader's "Mishima," and two documentaries by Errol Morris, "The Thin Blue Line" and "A Brief History of Time." In addition, there is a large body of concert works including five String Quartets; a Violin Concerto (1987) commissioned by the American Composer's Orchestra (Glass' first large-scale score for conventional orchestra without voices); a tone poem "The Light" (1987), commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra; "Itaipú" (1988) commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus; "The Canyon" (1988), the third of Glass' "portraits of nature," commissioned by the Rotterdam Philharmonic; and the "Low Symphony" (1993), based on musical motifs from the David Bowie/Brian Eno 1977 recording, "Low." Recent projects include "Monsters of Grace," a collaboration with Robert Wilson, and a new score for the Cocteau film "La Belle et La Bête." This biographical information is excerpted from www.schirmer.com/composers/glass_bio.html. Additional information on Glass also is available on-line at http://www.philipglass.com.
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