“The audience came to Orchestra Hall on Wednesday evening to get a sense of what Philip Glass, the iconic and prolific American composer, author and winner of the 2016 Chicago Tribune Literary Prize was like in the flesh. And a vivid sense was what they got,” writes John von Rhein in last Wednesday’s (11/3) Chicago Tribune. Glass was awarded the Tribune’s Literary Prize for his 2015 memoir, Words Without Music. “After playing his ‘Metamorphosis II,’ a rippling, repetitive solo piano piece in his trademark minimalist style, Glass sat down for an onstage conversation.… ‘I don’t mind saying I’m inspired by the music of others,’ Glass said. ‘Whether it’s Bartok or Bruckner or Lennie Tristano, it’s all the same to me. One thing I learned working in my father’s record store is that there’s no classical music or jazz music—there’s just music. I was open to all kinds of music in the ‘60s at Juilliard, as were most of my classmates. It was very common for us to … dissect a John Coltrane piece.… The issue is the quality of the work—that will determine whether it will fail or prevail.’ ”
Posted November 9, 2016
