Kate | Slininger

I’m so excited for Philip Glass’ birthday tomorrow, for no other reason than it gives me a reason to shamelessly post a million things online about him. He’s one of the most important and influential composers of the last century, and without a doubt my personal favorite. A quick list of accomplishments courtesy of NPR: 

Philip Glass turns 75 tomorrow. Impossible, you say? Given his two dozen operas, reams of orchestral music, virtually uncountable film scores and scads of projects in every discipline, isn’t he like 90 or 100 or 110? Or, judging by his kaleidoscopic connections and collaborators, isn’t he somewhere between 20 and 50, hunkered down among hipsters and plotting his next move toward musical world domination?

It’s true about his musical world domination. I feel like I can hear remnants of Glass in so much of work of artists today (which could also be in part to the arranging work of young composer Nico Muhly, a protegee of Glass and strong, yet largely unseen, presence in the indie music community). To amend Dostoevsky’s description of Gogol: “We all come out of Glass’ overcoat.” 

Anyway, here’s a compilation of some of my favorite Glass works, but I highly recommend checking out a fantastic documentary called Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts. It’s absolutely fantastic, featuring Nico Muhly, Chuck Close, and even Philip making pizza while ruminating on the origins of his compositions. Ok, now to the music:

This is from a film called Koyaanisqatsi, which you should see if you care about music, film, humanity, the earth and/or life in general:

Ok, ok, that’s probably a bit much. But I’ll be making a Spotify playlist later tonight, and I’ll update this post with a link if you CAN’T GET ENOUGH PHILIP. But I want to close with a couple more songs from modern artists, in whom I hear remnants of Glass:

This, along with everything The National does:  

Alright, just one more thing. Here’s Nico Muhly talking about Philip Glass, mostly because listening to Nico interviews is my drug of choice:

There’s obviously tons more to talk about, so share your own Philip Glass love!

UPDATE:

Here’s a link to my Glass playlist on Spotify! It’s mostly original Glass pieces, ending with songs by some of the younger artists I feel carry some of his influences (featuring Sufjan Stevens, The National, Nico Muhly, Clogs, etc)

NPR just posted an article, where you can listen to the first movement of Glass’s 9th symphony. The symphony premieres tonight at Carnegie Hall!