Biography
The Philip Glass Ensemble functions as a compact chamber ensemble focused primarily on realizing compositions by the celebrated American composer Philip Glass. During the closing years of the 1960s, Glass’s minimalist idiom struck listeners as experimental, an impression reinforced by its atypical scoring for keyboard synthesizers, amplified wind instruments, and an often electronically enhanced solo soprano delivering solfège syllables. The Ensemble’s own instrumental configuration emerged directly from that fusion with rock sonorities. Roughly ten musicians belong to the group, one of whom serves as sound engineer, although the exact roster onstage fluctuates with the requirements of each score. The Ensemble has maintained an active touring schedule across the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia while accumulating an extensive discography issued principally by Sony, Nonesuch, and Orange Mountain Music.
Philip Glass established the Ensemble in 1968 with an initial roster of seven players and assumed the role of music director in its formative period. Following the 1974 departure of keyboardist Bob Pelson, Glass recruited Michael Riesman as successor; Riesman, himself a composer, conductor, and pianist, took over as music director in 1976 and continues to hold the position. That same year Glass composed his landmark opera Einstein on the Beach expressly for the group. While the work brought Glass widespread recognition, it also elevated the Ensemble’s profile, notably through its widely praised 1979 Tomato Records recording, later reissued by CBS Masterworks in 1984. Thereafter Glass began to enlarge his orchestral palette, writing symphonies, concertos, and additional pieces for conventional symphony orchestra.
Throughout the 1980s and subsequent decades the Ensemble sustained performances of both its early repertoire and newer pieces conceived for its distinctive resources. Among its commercially successful releases were the CBS Masterworks account of The Photographer and the 1998 Nonesuch recording of the film score Koyaanisqatsi. Entering the twenty-first century, the group has persisted in presenting concerts and producing recordings. In 2018 it collaborated with the San Francisco Girls Chorus—whose artistic director, Lisa Bielawa, is also a member of the Ensemble—on a Carnegie Hall performance of Music with Changing Parts, the first presentation of that work by a women’s chorus. Additional Orange Mountain Music releases include the 2010 two-disc set A Retrospective, drawn from 2006 live performances in Monterrey, Mexico; the 2019 celebratory album 50 Years of the Philip Glass Ensemble; and the 2020 EP Music in Eight Parts.
Philip Glass established the Ensemble in 1968 with an initial roster of seven players and assumed the role of music director in its formative period. Following the 1974 departure of keyboardist Bob Pelson, Glass recruited Michael Riesman as successor; Riesman, himself a composer, conductor, and pianist, took over as music director in 1976 and continues to hold the position. That same year Glass composed his landmark opera Einstein on the Beach expressly for the group. While the work brought Glass widespread recognition, it also elevated the Ensemble’s profile, notably through its widely praised 1979 Tomato Records recording, later reissued by CBS Masterworks in 1984. Thereafter Glass began to enlarge his orchestral palette, writing symphonies, concertos, and additional pieces for conventional symphony orchestra.
Throughout the 1980s and subsequent decades the Ensemble sustained performances of both its early repertoire and newer pieces conceived for its distinctive resources. Among its commercially successful releases were the CBS Masterworks account of The Photographer and the 1998 Nonesuch recording of the film score Koyaanisqatsi. Entering the twenty-first century, the group has persisted in presenting concerts and producing recordings. In 2018 it collaborated with the San Francisco Girls Chorus—whose artistic director, Lisa Bielawa, is also a member of the Ensemble—on a Carnegie Hall performance of Music with Changing Parts, the first presentation of that work by a women’s chorus. Additional Orange Mountain Music releases include the 2010 two-disc set A Retrospective, drawn from 2006 live performances in Monterrey, Mexico; the 2019 celebratory album 50 Years of the Philip Glass Ensemble; and the 2020 EP Music in Eight Parts.
Albums
