Welcome to Gaia! ::

I totally adore philip glass. his string quartets are ingenious!

Have you ever heard his violin concerto? I have a recording of Hilary Hahn playing it (it was commissioned for her.)
I get to go see him and Bela Fleck in November! yay!


Who heard that Marin Alsop got a genius grant??? (Edgra Meyer got one a few years ago)

Being from Denver (I live several blocks away from her) -- I happen to think it's pretty cool.

I actually don't know any of Philip Glass's works -- my mom has a copy of the violin concerto, but I haven't listened to it. I'm a bigger fan of the other ones I mentioned.

Right now I going through a binge on contemporary classical music.

Currently, I clearing the music library of all it has on the main minimalists: Reich, Glass, Riley, and Adams. So far it has made me understand them a lot better, although once you get an idea of how they sound you can detect some strange quirks, such as

Steve Reich's Sextet, Three Movements, New York Counterpoint, Electric Counterpoint, and The Desert Music are essentially the same thing with different instrumentations. Not the exact same music, but same structure, melodies, mannerisms . . . not to mention they were composed within a few years of eachother (1984-1987). I guess the idea was so good he had to use it three times.

I'm also branching out on some lesser known composers such as Conlon Nancarrow, whose fame rests on the impossible to perform Studies for Player Piano. They are titled that because the composer himself created the piano rolls for them, so they can only be performed on a player piano, and with that sort of freedom the music from cannot be done with two, or even four hands!