PHILIP GLASS...rejects the notion of "minimalism" and defines his work...“music with repetitive structures”

“Through his operas, his symphonies, his compositions for his own ensemble, and his wide-ranging collaborations with artists ranging from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen to David Bowie, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times.”









The operas, “Einstein on the Beach,” “Satyagraha,” “Akhnaten,” and “The Voyage,”  play throughout the world’s leading houses. Glass has written music for experimental theatre such as “The Hours” and Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun”.  “Koyaanisqatsi,” his initial filmic landscape with Godfrey Reggio and the Philip Glass Ensemble, has been said to be one of the most radical and influential mating of sound and vision since “Fantasia.” His associations and collaborations with leading rock, pop and world music artists began in  the 1960s. 

Glass is the first composer to win a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music -- simultaneously.

Dissatisfied with much of what then passed for modern music, he moved to Europe, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger (who taught Aaron Copland , Virgil Thomson and Quincy Jones) and worked closely with the sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar. He then returned to New York in 1967 and formed the Philip Glass Ensemble – comprising of seven musicians playing keyboards and a variety of woodwind instruments, amplified and fed through a mixer. 




The new musical style that Glass was evolving was eventually dubbed “minimalism.” Glass himself never liked the term and preferred to define his work as “music with repetitive structures.” “Much of his early work was based on the extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that wove in and out of an aural tapestry.” 

Glass has composed more than twenty operas, large and small; eight symphonies (with others already on the way); two piano concertos and concertos for violin, piano, timpani, and saxophone quartet and orchestra; soundtracks to films ranging from new scores to the stylizing old classics; string quartets; and a growing body of work for solo piano and organ. He has collaborated with Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt, Yo-Yo Ma, and Doris Lessing, among many others. He presents lectures, workshops, and solo keyboard performances around the world, and continues to appear regularly with the Philip Glass Ensemble.

                                                Here is a video showing a preview of the first movement of the new Glass Partita                                                         for Solo Violin which will be premiere in the fall of 2011. 
                 

Follow the link to read more about the latest and current news surrounding Philip Glass ...http://philipglass.typepad.com/glass_notes/      

LUDOVICO EINAUDI, "The solo collaborator of minimalism, classical and contemporary music"

“The music of composer/pianist Ludovico Einaudi has been described as minimalist, classical, ambient, contemporary, welcoming the sound of stillness in a hectic world.”

Einaudiís music began to assume its own unmistakeable character towards the end of the 1980s, as he absorbed elements derived from popular music. Around this time he first became involved in collaborative ventures in theatre, video and dance. 

The album Le onde was a turning point in Ludovico Einaudís career as it was his first real work as a soloist.

In 2001 I Giorni was released consisting a dozen pieces for solo piano, composed as deliberate snapshots of the creativity of a musician who has achieved full freedom of expression.  This was the genesis of an album involving a long process of reflection. 

Einaudi: “When I compose, I need to improvise, but I also meditate for a long time on what I am writing. I progress on two apparently antithetical levels: I create a great diversity of styles then, at a later stage, I review it all with a rational ear.” The result was yet another performance of great emotional intensity, quite unconnected with the concept of a sound track.  Five years after Le onde, I again decided to create a solo work for piano; after experimenting with various things, I wanted to get back to the solitary dimension. It is a kind of suite of pieces in the form of an instrumental song. Although each piece has a meaning of its own, they are linked by a general idea of musical accountability and by melodic, thematic and harmonic references.” 

Einaudi aims to find a direct channel of communication with the public, be at the centre of the magic and emotion that can be created only during a live performance in gaining an immediate relationship with both music and audience. 

Ludovico Einaudi also has composed music for the cinema. He began with two films made by Michele Sordillo: Da qualche parte in citt (1994) and Acquario (1996), and continued in 1998 with Treno di panna, the only film made by Andrea De Carlo. In the same year, he composed the sound track for Giorni dispari by Dominick Tambasco, while some extracts from Le onde were included in Aprile by Nanni Moretti.

Einaudi latest album, Una Mattina, was released in 2004 for Decca.

I would have to say my favourite pieces are: Nightbook, Divenire, and Nuvole Bianche.

This is Einaudi introducing his recent release Nightbook:

Link to his website: http://www.einaudiwebsite.com/