The Company Index
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Philip Glass
Born in Baltimore, USA, in 1937, Philip Glass learnt to play the violin from the age of six and the flute from eight. After only two years at High School, he gained a place at the University of Chicago, where he studied mathematics and philosophy,
supporting himself through part-time jobs. On graduating he moved to New York to study at the Juilliard School and spent the next few years studying with Persichetti, Milhaud, Bergsma and Boulanger, with whom he spent two years working in Paris. There he was asked to transcribe music by Ravi Shankar for a film score.
This introduction to the techniques of Indian music led him to further studies in North Africa, India and the Himalayas before he returned to New York. By the early 1970s he had composed a large collection of music for the theatre company Mabou Mines (of which he was co-founder) and his own group the Philip Glass Ensemble.
Einstein on the Beach (1976), the first opera he wrote with Robert Wilson, broke new ground for 20th-century music theatre. He has continued to work in music theatre, writing six further operas, dance pieces and such other works as 1000 Airplanes on the Roof and The Mysteries. His works include
Itaipu, the Low Symphony (based on David Bowie's album), Symphony no.2 (for the Brooklyn Philharmonic), The Voyage (for the centenary of the Metropolitan Opera, New York), Symphony no.3 (for the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra), the score for Beni Montressor's ballet The Witches of Venice for La Scala, Milan,
and three pieces based on works by Jean Cocteau. His recent projects include Monsters of Grace, a collaboration with Robert Wilson and a new score for the Cocteau film La Belle et la bête.
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