I first attended Spoleto Festival USA in the summer 2011, partly because I wanted to attend the musical celebration commemorating the centennial of Menotti’s birth. The year 2012 marks another special occasion in the world of modern Classical music: the 75th birthday of Minimalist composer, Philip Glass (b. 1937). When I saw online that he would be part of the 2012 Spoleto Festival USA, I was utterly ecstatic; to me, this felt akin to meeting Beethoven. As a composer, I wanted to find out more about his overall process to writing modern music.
On June 2, I attended a conversation with Glass as part of the Music in Time series. He spoke about his musical approach, as well as his current projects and premieres. For those unfamiliar with Glass’s music, he utilizes the technique of phasing: taking short themes or motives and repeating them over and over. Since the 1960s he has written an abundance of piano and chamber pieces, operas, symphonies, and scores for movies such as The Truman Show (1998), The Hours (2001), Secret Window (2004) and The Illusionist (2006).
During the conversation, Glass also talked about the importance of his operas, specifically their structure. He perceives these works, from Einstein on the Beach (1975) to Kepler (2009) as “portraits” which can be arranged or viewed in any order, yet still form a whole. He also spoke of how he enjoys the collaborative process in music composition because composers can work with others in different artistic background instead of working by themselves.
What I enjoyed most about this discussion was that it included one particular instance which the audience was unprepared. Two movements from Glasworks (1981) were performed, as listed on the program. Towards the end though, the discussion shifted to the topic of his late friend, the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). Glass mentioned composed his Hydrogen Jukebox (a musical collaboration with Ginsberg using his poetry) back in 1990. Whenever the two were unable to perform, Glass mentioned that he would perform with with an audio tape of Ginsberg’s voice. This is precisely what occurred during the lecture, albeit an MP3 file was used, Glass himself performed a section of Hydrogen Jukebox one hour of in advance of the discussion.
This discussion is one particular event in my life which I will never forget. I am tremendously thankful for having taken the opportunity to hear such an illustrious composer describe his own works and play some of them for the audience for one brief and mesmerizing hour.