Artist-in-residence brings his unique art music to the Rodeo
“Some people might have an idea that High Performance Rodeo is an elitist thing for 45 queers” bemoans Michael Green founder and curator of One Yellow Rabbit’s annual international festival of the arts. In truth the festival has a mandate to entertain as wide an audience as imaginable an ambition that motivated Green to secure renowned contemporary composer Philip Glass as this year’s artist-in-residence.
Glass is among the best-known and most influential composers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries with two piano concertos eight symphonies 20-odd operas and at least as many film scores to his name. While it is something of a coup for the Rodeo to land an artist of his calibre this is his second appearance at the festival.
“A number of years ago he came out and did a solo piano concert on the Jack Singer Concert Hall stage” says Green. “It was very well attended and we got to know each other a little bit and that was the beginning of our relationship. About a year and a half ago while we were cooking up this year’s festival we started to imagine who we could have as a marquee artist. Having Philip Glass come back sounded interesting but we didn’t just want to repeat that experience from a few years ago as great as it was. We’ve had some success with the community in past years by inviting certain artists to actually take up a kind of a residency” Green explains. “So we thought we’d ask Philip what a residency with him might look like.”
Eclectic it turns out. There are four Glass-related events over the course of the festival ranging from intimate appearances at the Grand Theatre and The Cantos Music Collection to a performance with Kronos Quartet against the backdrop of a classic monster movie.
Glass’s first Rodeo piece will be played two days before he even arrives in Calgary. On January 16 and 17 at 8 p.m. the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra will present its première of Low Symphony Glass’s 1992 composition inspired by three tracks from the 1977 David Bowie and Brian Eno album Low . Glass Reflections marks the CPO’s Rodeo debut and promises to be a rare treat for lovers of art music.
Moving from the Jack Singer Concert Hall to the more personal Grand Theatre Glass himself will perform a solo piano concert January 21 at 8 p.m. revisiting classics from his repertoire. This intimate program presents a unique opportunity to watch a master at work. For those hungry for more Glass fanatics can pay $400 per person the next evening to watch him play on the impressive Cantos keyboard collection.
His last appearance at the festival may be the most interesting. When Universal Pictures re-released Bela Lugosi’s 1931 classic Dracula in 1998 it commissioned Glass to compose a score for the film. The emotionally evocative score was performed by the Kronos Quartet and was included on the DVD release of the film. On January 23 at 9:30 p.m. Glass and the Kronos Quartet will perform the score live while the film is screened in the auditorium.
While Green is clearly excited to have Glass as the Rodeo’s artist-in-residence he seems most excited by what it might mean for increasing the festival’s profile. “Every year we take another incremental step into the larger public’s consciousness” he says. “As the ripples go outward that outer ring gets larger and larger and impacts more and more people.”
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GLASS FRAGMENTS
Phillip Glass has the experience and the associations to back up his fame. At the age of 15 he studied mathematics and philosophy at the University of Chicago going on to attend the prestigious Juilliard School of Music where the keyboard became his instrument of choice. From Juilliard he continued his studies in France under the eminent composition teacher Nadia Boulanger and later worked closely with sitar virtuoso and composer Ravi Shankar.
In 1967 Glass formed the Phillip Glass Ensemble where he continues to play the keyboards.
He has collaborated with artists as diverse as Doris Lessing Allen Ginsberg Errol Morris Robert Wilson Godfrey Reggio Paul Simon David Byrne Patti Smith Woody Allen and Leonard Cohen. He has also composed film scores including Koyaanisqatsi Mishima The Thin Blue Line Kundun The Truman Show The Hours The Fog of War and The Illusionist.
He is widely acknowledged as an important composer for bringing art music to the larger public.
