I wrote recently about Glass' imminent Southern California invasion, however this month he goes to the independent republic of Northern California bringing Koyaanisqatsi and La Belle et La Bete to town.  San Francisco is an interesting musical place.  Glass' music is routinely performed there.  Recently Nicole Paiement and Ensemble Parallele has championed Glass' works -notably Orphée and the Harpsichord Concerto. SF Opera commissioned Glass in 2007 to compose the large-scale Appomattox and for years a small opera company in Oakland presented all sorts of the smaller Glass theater works and chamber operas.

When Glass brings his own ensemble to town it's invariably sold out.  The irony here is that the PGE frequently performs in Davies Symphony Hall, home of the San Francisco Symphony where Glass' ten symphonies and thirteen concertos have never been performed.  This is especially bizarre considering the SFS has a series called American Mavericks. 

But much to the chagrin of the symphony crowd the interest in the music persists and remains intense.  The only part of Glass' catalogue that hasn't infiltrated the establishment at this point is the symphony societies in America.  That crowd usually chalks up sold out Glass events in their own halls to it being like the hall were being rented out to a rock concert type of thing.

No matter. 

Moving into June, Glass will make a rare appearance in the Hamptons performing a benfit for the Ille Art Gallery to a very special small audience on June 8.  It's a rare chance to hear Glass perform solo piano in such an intimate setting and it's for a good cause.

Yesterday, Celebrate Brooklyn announced that its season would include a performance of Dracula at the Prospect Park Bandshell with the Philip Glass Ensemble.  Glass, Riesman, and Kronos Quartet tried this once before about five years ago and about 15 minutes into the show, whilst in Transylvania, the skies over Brooklyn darkened, winds howled, and lightning menaced the public to the point where they had to call the show with no rain-date scheduled, this time around is take two. Up until they called off the show, the crowd seemed to enjoy the extra ambience. I hope it all goes well this time around.