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Groningen Philip Glass Festival

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It seems an entire European City will wholeheartedly and open-mindedly be dedicating itself to the Music of Philip Glass this October 20-27.  The hosts of this event are the city of Groningen and the Noord Nederlands Orkest which will perform Symphony No.8 and the Concerto Fantasy. 
Philip Glass will be present and performing during this festival including a solo piano recital and the country premiere of Book of Longing. 
Elsewhere around town various native and visiting ensembles join the festivities including groups like Cello Octet Conjunto Iberico, and English group Icebreaker will perform Glass’ Music with Changing Parts which was released on CD this year by OMM.
Glass films will also be shown including a screening of Koyaanisqatsi and the documentary about Philip Glass "Looking Glass."
Personally I find this festival incredible:  To my knowledge there have been other "celebrations" of Philip Glass’ music, but this sort of open-armed celebration of a (foreign) living artist is almost unimaginable for someone from this side of the pond.  My hat goes off to all involved and I wish I could be there myself.  Most of the details of these events were submitted by Léon who will be in the midst of the celebration.

For a Full List of Events go to the calendar at PhilipGlass.com or the festival’s website.

VISIT GRONINGEN:
Oct 20 Glass in the City – Several artists perform music by Glass on different locations in Groningen from 2-5 pm. Artists include: The Northern Consort, the Matangi Quartet, the Cello Octet Conjunto Iberico ("Glass Reflections"), the Hanze Saxophonequartet, and Gerard Bouwhuis (piano)

Oct 21 Films on Glass – Movie theatre Images show three films from 2-5:50 pm: Koyaanisqatsi, Taji Chaotic Harmony and the documentary Looking Glass

Oct 21 The Ragazze Quartet performs Glass’ String Quartet No. 5

Oct 23 Book of Longing (Philip Glass performing)
          Noord Nederlands Orkest (Orchestra of the Northern Netherlands)

Oct 24 Philip Glass Piano Recital

Oct 25 Works by Glass – Prince Claus Conservatory

Oct 25 Icebreaker performs Music with Changing Parts

Oct 26 Namghyal Lhamo & Gerard Bouwhuis: Voice from the Himalaya
           Tibetan vocal music and The Northern Consort and Gerard Bouwhuis performing Music in Contrary              Motion and Music in Similar Motion

Oct 27 Noord Nederlands Orkest
    The NNO performs three works by Glass: The Concerto Fantasy for Timpanists and Orchestra, Symphony     No. 8 and an still to be dediced work.

Oct 27 Glass Dansts (Glass Dances)
    The Prince Claus Conservatory performs Glass Works + several dj’s and vj’s

8 thoughts on “Groningen Philip Glass Festival”

  1. The Dutch Radio 4 will record and broadcast at least three of the concerts listed above. I will make sure the link to these broadcasts will be available by the time they are online.

  3. Wow, they really go for it here in Groningen. Even the belles of the great Martini Tower, in the citycentre of Groningen, will be producing Philip Glass-melodies.

  4. The details for the program of October 20th (Glass in the City) have been published. The works performed are:
    – Carillon Martini Tower (Adolph Rots, Bauke Reitsma): Music in Similar Motion
    – The Northern Consort & Gerard Bouwhuis: Music in Similar Motion
    – Matangi Quartet: String Quartet No.3 (Mishima) / Strung Out
    – Cello-Octete Conjunto Iberico: Symphony for Eigth / Facades / Parts from String Quartets
    – Hanze Saxophones Quartet: The Windcatcher / Concerto for Saxophone Quartet
    – Gerard Bouwhuis: Two Pages / Music in Contrary Motion

  7. Last night’s performance of The book of longing was great. The singers were in very god shape. We had very bad view at the stage, but the sound made well up for that. Being a fan of both Cohen and Glass made it double fun.

  8. It really was great indeed, and so was the piano recital this evening. Wow, what a thrill to see Glass performing two nights at a row. The audience reception was very warm (as was the person of Philip Glass, what a lovely and charming man…), resulting in two encores at the recital.

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