sillywhatwell: Philip Glass, photographed by Annie Leibowitz. Dear Mr. Glass, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Sorry for shouting, I just wanted to make sure you heard me from the other side of the Pacific Ocean.  I really do hope you have a lovely birthday, especially at the premiere of your Ninth Symphony by the American Composers Orchestra. I did just want to say a little personal thank you. I speak for many musicians when I say thank you for sharing your music, particularly for opening up your catalogue to interpretations from performers in all corners of the globe.  I suppose you could just have easily gone on performing your music exclusively with your ensemble and that would have been that.  But you didn’t, you published.  You shared the primary source with us all, the closest contact that a lot of performers have with you.  I believe that the score is the most intimate knowledge you can have of a human being who composes music, so in a way might we performers perhaps know you better than others, from the inside as it were… Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.  Haha. Your music, whether you are aware of this or not (probably not!), has also played a part in refocussing my own life personally.   A couple of years back, I had been just another very hard working accompanist, chamber musician, choral conductor and teacher when I was approached by the ABC Classics label to record an “approachable contemporary” album, by which they meant your solo piano music, Mr. Glass.  With a typical accompanist’s trepidation at being thrust into the spotlight, I said yes.  I was drawn into your hypnotically meditative oeuvre.  I lived with it, in it, for the months leading up to the recording sessions and it continues to live in me now through my solo appearances performing it.  People are listening to me play and they are reassessing their approach to your work.  A radio presenter here in Australia said, just before she played a track on her breakfast show “I don’t like Philip Glass, but I like this.”  I think that speaks for itself! I play your piano music quite differently to you in a way, and I hope you don’t mind. Yes, we performers are conduits for your work via the musical score, but no man is an island so it needs must change as it travels through us.  Thank you for supporting that.  Now you’ll leave not only a legacy of scores, but also a legacy of recorded interpretations.  How lucky you are! And how lucky we are too. Happy Birthday!

sillywhatwell:

Philip Glass, photographed by Annie Leibowitz.

Dear Mr. Glass,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! Sorry for shouting, I just wanted to make sure you heard me from the other side of the Pacific Ocean.  I really do hope you have a lovely birthday, especially at the premiere of your Ninth Symphony by the American Composers Orchestra.

I did just want to say a little personal thank you.

I speak for many musicians when I say thank you for sharing your music, particularly for opening up your catalogue to interpretations from performers in all corners of the globe.  I suppose you could just have easily gone on performing your music exclusively with your ensemble and that would have been that.  But you didn’t, you published.  You shared the primary source with us all, the closest contact that a lot of performers have with you.  I believe that the score is the most intimate knowledge you can have of a human being who composes music, so in a way might we performers perhaps know you better than others, from the inside as it were… Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part.  Haha.

Your music, whether you are aware of this or not (probably not!), has also played a part in refocussing my own life personally.  

A couple of years back, I had been just another very hard working accompanist, chamber musician, choral conductor and teacher when I was approached by the ABC Classics label to record an “approachable contemporary” album, by which they meant your solo piano music, Mr. Glass.  With a typical accompanist’s trepidation at being thrust into the spotlight, I said yes.  I was drawn into your hypnotically meditative oeuvre.  I lived with it, in it, for the months leading up to the recording sessions and it continues to live in me now through my solo appearances performing it.  People are listening to me play and they are reassessing their approach to your work.  A radio presenter here in Australia said, just before she played a track on her breakfast show “I don’t like Philip Glass, but I like this.”  I think that speaks for itself!

I play your piano music quite differently to you in a way, and I hope you don’t mind. Yes, we performers are conduits for your work via the musical score, but no man is an island so it needs must change as it travels through us.  Thank you for supporting that.  Now you’ll leave not only a legacy of scores, but also a legacy of recorded interpretations.  How lucky you are!

And how lucky we are too. Happy Birthday!

Source: sillywhatwell
  1. natinotes reblogged this from sillywhatwell and added:
    Beautifully said!
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  3. sillywhatwell posted this