COMPOSER Philip Glass is making his debut this week at the New York Philharmonic. Yes, you heard that right. Let’s move on — it’s awkward for everyone involved. But he’s glad to be there now.
Glass’s appearance is with his own ensemble and the orchestra itself, playing behind Godfrey Reggio’s film Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, the score for which may be the composer’s best-known work. (I saw Glass and company perform this at the Hollywood Bowl a summer or two ago — truly kickass, and this film about technology’s impact on our lives seem even more pertinent now, I think, than it did when it appeared in the early ’80s.)
I spoke to Glass — who I seem to running into a lot lately — for a story in the Playbill. Here it is. Glass was happy to look back at what became his first feature film score and one of his first big pieces.
(For all my West Coast partisanship, wishing I was in New York right now.)