Philip Glass Piano Etudes: The Complete Folios 1-20 & Essays from 20 Fellow Artists is a one-of-a-kind tribute to this singular artist’s most personal work, his series of 20 piano etudes. A deluxe boxed gift set, it was designed as an heirloom to be cherished by music lovers, piano students and players, and anyone attuned to contemporary culture, savored for its beauty and insights, and, of course, explored at the keyboard. It includes the complete etudes, 1 through 20, plus a hardcover book, Studies in Time: Essays on the Music of Philip Glass. Each etude has been newly engraved and each is printed on oversize heavy stock and sewn-bound into individual folios. In Studies in Time, artists and writers including Alice Waters, Angélique Kidjo, Ari Shapiro, Ira Glass, Justin Peck, Laurie Anderson, Martin Scorsese, Pico Iyer, and others reflect on the music, the art of composition, the meaning of practice, and so much more.

Published by Artisan Books
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to be released October 31, 2023

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Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late-twentieth-century classical music. Yet in Words Without Music, his critically acclaimed memoir, he creates an entirely new and unexpected voice, that of a born storyteller and an acutely insightful chronicler, whose behind-the-scenes recollections allow readers to experience those moments of creative fusion when life so magically merged with art. From his childhood in Baltimore to his student days in Chicago and at Juilliard, to his first journey to Paris and a life-changing trip to India, Glass movingly recalls his early mentors, while reconstructing the places that helped shape his creative consciousness. Whether describing working as an unlicensed plumber in gritty 1970s New York or composing Satyagraha, Glass breaks across genres and re-creates, here in words, the thrill that results from artistic creation. Words Without Music ultimately affirms the power of music to change the world.

A Memoir by Philip Glass
Published by Liveright Books

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Given that all the events of a long, rich and full artistic life can scarcely be squeezed into a moderate-size book, how does one choose, at age 78, what to put into a memoir and what to leave out? The Promethean composer Philip Glass provokes this question in his lively and colorful new book, “Words Without Music,” in which he offers stories from his life in varyingly detailed magnification. – New York Times

The Twenty Etudes for Piano were composed during the years from 1991 to 2012. Their final configuration into Book 1 and Book 2 was determined by the music itself in the course of its composition. Taken together, they suggest a real trajectory that includes a broad range of music and technical ideas. In the end, the Etudes are meant to be appreciated not only by the general listener, but especially by those who have the ability and patience to learn, play and perform the music themselves. -Philip Glass

The Complete Piano Etudes
by Philip Glass
Published by Chester Music

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Writings on Glass highlights the life and the career of America’s best-known classical composer, Philip Glass. Well-known as a champion of minimalism, Glass’s operas (Einstein on the Beach; Satyagraha), film scores (Koyaanisqatsi; The Thin Blue Line), and symphonic and popular works have made him a dominant figure on the American musical landscape. This book traces the development of Glass’s varied work through in-depth interviews, along with critical writings by leading musicologists. The book opens with “Metamorphosis”, a section describing Glass’s life and career in detail, with an introductory essay by Tim Page followed by an extensive interview conducted with Glass on his early musical development. Part II of the book focuses on Glass’s instrumental work, including his well-known chamber work Music in 12 Parts, and his life as a touring composer/musician. Part III focuses on his multimedia/theatrical works, including his 1990 collaboration with Allen Ginsberg on Hydrogen Jukebox. The book concludes with a bibliography, complete list of Glass’s works, and discography for building a record collection. Compiled with the participation of Philip Glass, and drawing on his extensive archives, this book promises to become a standard for lovers of contemporary music, as well as an important reference for professional musicologists and music libraries.

Writings on Glass
Essays, Interviews, and Criticisms
Edited and introduced by Richard Kostelanetz. Assistant editor: Robert Flemming.
Published by Schirmer Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Macmillan Publishing, New York, USA. (c) 1997 by Schirmer Books.

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In 1975 Philip Glass’s music was largely ignored by the more traditional, contemporary classical music world. He had no record contract and was unable to perform outside art galleries and performance spaces. Today Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha and Akhnaten have become three of the most performed and highly regarded of 20th-century operas, enjoyed by audiences for their evocative meditations on men who altered the course of history through their inner visions. As a result, Philip Glass has emerged as today’s most significant and innovative American composer.

In Music by Philip Glass, he tells of his musical struggle and growth, from the Juilliard School, through his studies in Paris with the great teacher Nadia Boulanger (whose other students included Aaron Copland and Virgil Thomson) and working with Ravi Shankar to “translate” his scores for Western musicians, to his immersion in the avant-garde theater of Mabou Mines, LaMama and Robert Wilson.

Here are the sudden obstacles and enormous toil involved in mounting and performing his three revolutionary operas, as well as the full libretti and discussions of the music by the composer. Equally revealing are his reflections on the successful Glassworks, Songs from Liquid Days, and the film scores for Koyaanisqatsi and Mishima.

With a new foreword, new photos, and updated discography, Music by Philip Glass remains an essential companion for avid Glass listeners or for anyone interested in rhythmically rich, epic, cutting-edge music.

Music by Philip Glass
Copyright 1987 by Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc.
Edited and with supplementary material by Robert T. Jones.
First published in 1987 by Harper & Row, New York, USA; UK in 1988 by Faber and Faber Limited, London. Reprinted in USA in 1995 by Da Capo Press, Inc.

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July 15, 1988, saw the world premiere of a radical new form of music theatre at the Vienna International Airport Hangar #3. Throughout its subsequent North American tour, 1000 Airplanes on the Roof has astonished audiences and sent critics scrambling for new descriptive vocabulary. Michael Walsh (Time) called it “part Freud, part Kafka, and part Steven Spielberg” and declared that “operatic design may never again be the same.” Peter Goodman (New York Newsday) said, “the powerfully hallucinogenic musical monodrama … is a child of the ’80s in every way.” Michele May (Potomac News) called it “a light show, a ballet, a spoken opera, an art exhibit, a lesson in Zen. Above all, it is a totally innovative entertainment form.”

1000 Airplanes recreates the original production with color photographs of Jerome Sirlin’s holographic set projections accompanied by David Henry Hwang’s compelling script. It is the story of “M.,” a New Yorker who is apparently abducted by aliens, probed and questioned, then returned to Earth and told to forget the event. The ambiguity of M.’s experience – was it real or hallucinated? – is never fully resolved; it is a parable on contemporary’s man’s search for identity in a bewildering world. Philip Glass, David Henry Hwang and Jerome Sirlin stage a vivid, intense journey through M.’s world – inner and outer – which challenges our very notions of reality and sanity. We experience the full force of M.’s dilemma: no place could be as alien as the world has become.

Composer Philip Glass is famous for his innovative theatrical collaborations, perhaps most notably with director Robert Wilson on their epic opera, Einstein on the Beach. Playwright David Henry Hwang’s play, M. Butterfly, was honored with the 1988 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and John Gassner awards. Designer Jerome Sirlin has created stage and scenographic designs for a wide range of productions in theatre, opera, dance, and film, ranging from West Coast experimental performance art to Wagner’s Ring Cycle and Madonna’s Who’s That Girl tour.

1000 Airplanes on the Roof
Published in 1989 by Peregrine Smith Book, Salt Lake City, USA.
(c) 1989 by Dunvagen Music Publishers, Inc.

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The study of music within multimedia contexts has become an increasingly active area of scholarly research. However, the application of such studies to musical genres outside the ‘classical’ film canon, or in television and other media remains largely unexplored in any detail. Tristian Evans demonstrates how postminimal music interacts with other media forms, focusing on the film music by Philip Glass, but also taking into account works by other composers such as Steve Reich, Terry Riley, John Adams and others inspired by minimalist and postminimal practices. Additionally, Evans develops innovative ways of analyzing this music, based on an interdisciplinary approach, and draws on research from areas that include philosophy, linguistics and film theory. The book offers one of the first in-depth studies of Philip Glass’s music for film, considering The Hours and Dracula, Naqoyqatsi, Notes on a Scandal and Watchmen, while examining re-applications of the music in new cinematic and televisual contexts. The book will appeal to musicologists but also to those working in the fields of film music, cultural studies, media studies and multimedia.

Shared Meanings in the Film Music of Philip Glass: Music, Multimedia and Postminimalism
By Dr. Tristan Evans
Routledge Publishing
Tristian Evans is lecturer in Music at Bangor University, UK. He completed BMus, MA and doctoral studies at Bangor between 2002-10, receiving support from the AHRC’s doctoral programme.

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Philip Glass: minimalist, creator of ground-breaking operas such as Einstein on the Beach and Akhnaten, name behind movie scores for The Truman Show and Kundun, composer of powerfully expressive and beguilingly romantic symphonies, musician of unparalleled influence on contemporary sounds from classical to club.
These are the familiar aspects of America’s most successful living classical composer, who almost accidentally has built a substantial body of concert music along side core theatre works. as performances and CD releases build up, they are giving more and more listeners their first taste of what Glass is about. But what direction will he take next?
With the help of wide-ranging interviews and unprecedented access to the Glass archives, including private recordings of Glass’s latest pieces, English critic and write Robert Maycock has put himself in a unique position to appraise Glass’s life and work to date and to report new directions. He comes to some surprising conclusions.

Glass – A Portrait
By Robert Maycock
Sanctuary Publishing

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Philip Glass is one of America’s best-known classical composers, whose work includes film scores for Koyaanisqatsi, The Thin Blue Line, and Kundun; the famous opera trilogy of Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten; and numerous symphonies and popular works.
At the same time, Glass’s non-traditional musical syntax, his experimental, minimalist approach, and his ambiguous tonality have long resisted interpretation, and indeed very few analyses of his compositional techniques have been published. In this in-depth study, John Richardson develops new theoretical models through which to analyze both Glass’s work and its genesis.
Richardson focuses on Akhnaten, the third opera of Glass’s trilogy, to show how the composer’s concepts of sound and dramatic context, cultural theory, and gender construction intersect, providing perhaps the best demonstration of “the very nature of Glass’s aesthetic, which places a strong emphasis on implicit levels of signification and steers clear of conventional ‘story telling’ narrative strategies.”
Careful explanations of theory and compositional strategies, close readings of the work itself, considerations of the collaborative aspects of the opera’s evolution, and incorporation of previously unpublished interviews with Glass himself combine to illuminate both a landmark work of contemporary music theater and a dominant figure on the American musical landscape.

Singing Archaeology: Philip Glass’s Akhnaten
By John Richardson
Wesleyan University Press. Published by University Press of New England, Hanover (USA) and London (UK)
JOHN RICHARDSON, Ph.D., is a musician, journalist, and musicologist who has taught at Universities in Finland and conducted research at several institutions in North America. He currently teaches at the Department of Music at the City University of London, in UK.
Copyright John Richardson

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Akhnaten