Philip Glass Ensemble
Music in 12 Parts
Brighton Festival Exclusive
This year Brighton Festival presents two special nights celebrating the work of American composer Philip Glass. The first is Music in 12 Parts.
Music in 12 Parts is arguably the defining moment in the minimalist movement. Part 'theoretical exercise' and part 'deeply engrossing work of art' (Tim Page, New York Times), it crystallised all Glass's previous ideas and achievements. And though in essence it closed a chapter, it also contained many of the structural and harmonic conceptions that would characterise the composer's subsequent oeuvre. It received its world premiere in 1974, but wasn't recorded in its entirety until 1989. It remains the longest and most ambitious work the composer has written for his own ensemble.
Philip Glass holds a prominent place in late 20th- and early 21st-century modern music. His breakthrough - Music in 12 Parts - was followed by the landmark opera Einstein on the Beach, created with Robert Wilson in 1976. Since then he has expanded his repertoire to include music for dance, theatre, chamber ensemble, orchestra and film. He has received three Academy Award nominations - for Martin Scorsese's Kundun, Stephen Daldry's The Hours and, most recently, Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal.
Here Philip Glass leads his own ensemle in a rare live performance of his four-hour epic.
'Music in 12 parts is some of the most soulful music Glass ever wrote.'
New York Times
Duration: 4hr 20mins including three short intervals
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