Happy New Year everyone. Ahem, I think it's safe to say 2008 can/will be/should be forgotten for a variety of reasons. So, putting it safely behind us we look forward. I'm thankful for all the support in the past year of this blog.
We continue to move ahead. Let's start off with the good news. Orange Mountain Music will be releasing the soundtrack album to the Scott Hicks documentary GLASS: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts later this month on iTunes and Amazon.
At the end of the month Philip Glass (and Schubert) will celebrate his 72nd Birthday. This month is a failry exciting one on the PhilipGlass.com Calendar. Already, on New Year's Day there was a performance of the mysterious unrecorded Symphony No.7 "Toltec." Though I haven't seen a review of th performance in Linz.
Also to start the New Year, here is an interview from Dec.22nd on WNYC with Philip Glass on the Leonard Lopate Show and here is a short video which was done for the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I believe BAM will be producing a Glass show of some kind in the next year but I will wait for an official announcement on that.
We move ahead, to infinity! and beyond!
1 thought on “The New Year”
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Since I’m a great admirer of Philip Glass’ work & style, and being a music student living in Vienna I didn’t hesitate any second and took the glorious opportunity to hear the European Premiere of Symphony No. 7 in Linz. It was a very memorable experience. The Symphony itself is truly impressive, scored for a huge orchestra (including five percussionists and organ!) and based on the beliefs and philosophy of the indigenous Toltec from Mesoamerica, which were the ancestors of today’s Mexican tribes like the Wirrarika. The second and third movement additionally feature a mixed chorus, singing in Toltec language I guess. The opening movement starts in restrained tempo and develops soon through a variety of themes and counterthemes, colourful instrumentations and complex composite rhythmic patterns, techniques which are developed even further in the first movement of Symphony No. 8. To me, the second movement catches the atmosphere of Toltec wisdom and spirituality very well, also resulting in some very interesting metric twists due to the captivating mantra-like repetition of some powerful musical phrases with various rhythmic patterns being overlapped. But I think the final movement was the most impressive one: a harmonious up-silence-down-silence wave-like building-up of chains of harmonic progressions and interwoven melodies at a moderate tempo up to acoustically gigantic dimensions.
In fact, there was a review from this concert in the local Austrian newspaper Oberösterreichische Nachrichten. You can find it here – it’s very positive, but unfortunately it’s in German: http://www.nachrichten.at/nachrichten/kultur/linz09/art470,90275.
As far as I know, the Symphony No. 7 has been recorded by the Bruckner Orchester Linz together with the Konzertvereinigung Linzer Theatherchor conducted by Dennis Russell Davies in recent days. Hopefully it’s going to be released soon because it really should be.
Finally, thank you Richard for maintaining this blog and always providing us with the hottest news. I’m constantly eager to know about Philip Glass’ upcoming projects, especially ‘Kepler’ and rumoured Symphonies Nos. 9 and 10, and I’m looking forward to hearing his new works, watching ‘GLASS: A Portrait’ and whatever good 2009 may bring. Happy New Year!