Msr. Glass

This morning, NPR's Morning Edition featured a good interview with Philip Glass, the "complex minimalist."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95313989

I first discovered Glass' compositions through my Music Appreciation class during undergrad days in the late 80s. The professor was a huge fan of the musician, and all manner of minimalism for that matter. We listened to a few "Acts" from Einstein on the Beach and I was pretty much an instant convert. Some of my classmates at the time were dissmissive of Glass' often maddening pieces, but I found (and find) his works endlessly fascinating. His "psychostrata" is so textured, so spiral-like in their narratives of singularity that it is not unlike being witness to the unraveling of a double helix, replicated (if you will) in unique ways with each listen.

I met Phillip Glass after a lovely intimate show he did at the Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, FL in 2000. Just the man and his piano, sans any electronic keyboards or other hardware. Afterwards, I got his autograph and told him that some filmmaker oughta do a treatise on his life the way director Francois Girard had done for Glenn Gould with THIRTY TWO SHORT FILMS ABOUT GLENN GOULD. He looked a little embarrassed by the flattery. Very gracious man.