Philip Glass

Philip Glass (born 1937 in Baltimore) is an American composer widely regarded as one of the most influential musical figures of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. A leading exponent of minimalism, his work is characterised by repetitive structures, slow harmonic change and hypnotic rhythmic patterns that draw on Indian classical music, Western classical tradition and contemporary popular forms.

Glass studied at the Juilliard School and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and was profoundly influenced by his time working as assistant to Ravi Shankar. His landmark works include Music in Twelve Parts (1971–74), the operas Einstein on the Beach (1976), Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1983), and numerous film scores including Koyaanisqatsi (1982) and The Hours (2002). His Tirol Concerto (2000), composed for the Tirolean Summer Festival, has been used by Sol León and Paul Lightfoot in their work Shoot the Moon, which forms one half of the So Are We programme. Glass has collaborated extensively with choreographers including Jerome Robbins, Lucinda Childs and Twyla Tharp.