Philip Glass’s The Complete Piano Etudes

One of the most influential composers of our time, Philip Glass has had an extraordinary and unprecedented impact upon the musical and intellectual life of our age, with more than 30 operas, 14 symphonies, 13 concertos, numerous soundtracks to films, nine string quartets, a growing body of work for solo piano and organ, and collaborations with artists from Twyla Tharp to Allen Ginsberg, and Leonard Cohen to David Bowie. He describes himself as a composer of “music with repetitive structures” and says that “If I’m to be remembered for anything, it will probably be for the piano music, because people can play it.” Philip Glass conceived The Etudes as a set of 20 works for solo piano written to improve his own performance technique. His most personal body of work, the pieces are a self-portrait of a life’s practice, representing some of the most intimate and inventive music of Glass’s oeuvre. The evening celebrates the release of a new special edition Philip Glass Piano Etudes (Artisan), a boxed set that includes the Complete Etudes 1-20 and a hardcover book Studies in Time: Essays on the Music of Philip Glass.