To celebrate the 80th birthday of the legendary American composer, The Complete Sony Recordings is the first ever release of Philip Glass Sony Classical recordings together in a limited-edition box set. The 24-CD set includes the first ever release of Glassworks specially mixed for your personal cassette player on CD, a 44 minute interview with Philip Glass on Glassworks (previously only available on a Columbia 7 ), a hard bound book with the original liner notes, most penned by Glass himself, plus full discographical notes and complete libretti.
Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer. He is considered one of the most influential music makers of the late 20th century. His music is also often controversially described as minimal music, along with the work of the other "major minimalists" La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Steve Reich. Glass has distanced himself from the "minimalist" label, describing himself instead as a composer of "music with repetitive structures".
Though his early mature music shares much with what is normally called "minimalist", he has since evolved stylistically. Currently, he describes himself as a "classicist", pointing out that he is trained in harmony and counterpoint and studied such composers as Franz Schubert, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with Nadia Boulanger.
Glass has founded his namesake musical group, the Philip Glass Ensemble, with which he still performs on keyboards, and has written operas, musical theatre works, ten symphonies, eleven concertos, solo works, chamber music, including seven string quartets and instrumental sonatas. He has been nominated for three Academy Awards for his scores for The Truman Show, Kundun and Notes on a Scandal.
