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LIFE & ARTS

Talk mixed with performance celebrates the sounds of striking Glass

by AUSTIN HAVICAN 
The Daily Cougar

To mark his 70th birthday and a fascinating career of innovative collaboration, Philip Glass spoke to a full audience Monday night at Moore's Opera House on Monday night about his work and the concept of creativity. 

The presentation was a combination of artistic discussion and live performance by the famed composer.

The majority of Glass' presentation focused on the meaning and process of artistic collaboration.

Glass explained that his first major collaborative effort, the five-hour opera Einstein on the Beach, written and directed in 1976 with Robert Wilson, was created first with the subject in mind -- Einstein. The pair then came up with the title, drew out the images that would work with the music based on Einstein's theory of relativity, invented the movement of the actors and story, and emerged with a finalized piece.

"People would tell us what the opera was about," Glass said. "For the audience, the event became an occasion to make a work of art."

He then walked over to a piano and played a short segment of the opera while images from the performance were projected onto an enormous screen behind him. 

Glass emphasized the importance of interaction between music and images. He theorized that images are basically neutral, but with music an artist can manipulate the viewer's interpretation of the image.

Glass also recounted several anecdotes about his collaboration with famed poet Allen Ginsberg. He re-enacted their perfromance using a recording of Ginsberg's voice while he played piano.

Glass later opened a question-and-answer session. 

Most of the questions from the audience were veiled compliments or summaries without a point that Glass did his best to elaborate on.

Glass' presentation resonated with the same undeniable intelligence one senses when listening to his music, and his genius was obvious. He constantly interrupted his own sentences to extrapolate the meaning behind the ideas in the sentence, and his hurried style of opera carried over into his explanations of his methods of self-expression and art.

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