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Tune-In Music Festival

Celebrating the American Icon
Philip Glass at 75


Highlights Include:
A World Premiere by Hal Wilner, Bill Frisell and Ralph Steadman
Glass’s Music in Twelve Parts
An Evening of Music and Poetry with Patti Smith and Philip Glass
and Glass’s Another Look At Harmony

As seen in The New York Times and The New York Observer

Comprised of five separate programs over the span of four days, the Tune-In Music Festival will feature Glass’s own music, including his definitive work Music in Twelve Parts, as well as music, poetry, and art created and performed by his muses, collaborators, and protégées. 

Kaddish on Thursday, February 23, 2012 at 7:30pm - One of the greatest works to emerge from the Beat Generation was Allen Ginsberg’s Kaddish, a sprawling, propulsive poem about the poet’s estrangement from Judaism. The 2012 Tune-In Music Festival will begin with a world premiere, commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory from jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, to be performed by the composer and an eight-piece ensemble accompanying a reading of Kaddish by Ginsberg collaborator Hal Willner and artist Ralph Steadman, who will create the visual design and staging to accompany the piece. (Runs 75 minutes with no intermission)

Philip Glass and Patti Smith: The Poet Speaks on Friday, February 24, 2012 at 7:30pm - Longtime Glass collaborator Patti Smith and her band join Glass for the second concert, “The Poet Speaks,” performing music and readings celebrating their favorite poets, including Ginsberg and William Blake, which will be the first New York performance for the pair. (Runs approx. 90 Minutes with no intermission)

Music in 12 Parts on Saturday, February 25, 2012 at 5:00pm - For the third concert, The Philip Glass Ensemble will offer a rare performance of the entire Music in Twelve Parts, Glass’s epic minimalist composition which he considers his “breakthrough” work. (Runs a total of 5 hours including two short intermissions and one hour long dinner break)

Afternoon Concert on Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 2:00pm - The final day of the Festival will begin with compilation of unique artists that Philip Glass has assembled and represent the forward momentum of contemporary music. (Runs a total of 2 hours 15 minutes with one Intermission)

Another Look at Harmony – Part IV on Sunday, February 26, 2012 at 7:30pm - The Festival concludes with Glass’s Another Look at Harmony, a choral work Glass started in 1975 for organ and 100 voices, performed by the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, the Collegiate Chorale, and organist Michael Riesman, music director and keyboardist of The Philip Glass Ensemble. (Runs 62 minutes with no intermission)

About Philip Glass
For more than five decades, Glass continues to be at the forefront of contemporary music and art. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and while there earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar’s Indian music into Western notation. By 1974, Glass had a number of innovative projects, creating a large collection of new music for The Philip Glass Ensemble and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company. This period culminated in Music in Twelve Parts and the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach for which he collaborated with Robert Wilson. Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Symphony No. 7 and Symphony No. 8—Glass’ latest symphonies—along with Waiting for the Barbarians, an opera based on the book by J.M. Coetzee, premiered in 2005. Several new works have been unveiled recently, including Book of Longing, a collaboration with Leonard Cohen (2007, Luminato, Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity) and Appomattox (2007, San Francisco Opera), an opera about the end of the Civil War. The English National Opera performed Glass’ Satyagraha in London in conjunction with New York’s Metropolitan Opera who performed the piece in New York in April 2008. His most recent opera Kepler premiered in Linz in September 2009. Glass continues to tour solo and with The Philip Glass Ensemble.

Major support for the Tune-In Music Festival provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Reed Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo, the New York State Legislature, The Amphion Foundation, Inc. and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation.

Photo: Steve Pyke

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