Philip Glass Celebrates 80th Birthday With 'Symphony No. 11' and Retrospective Box Set

Famed composer Philip Glass marks his 80th birthday early next year. To celebrate, the prolific musician will premiere a new piece, Symphony No. 11, at New York's Carnegie Hall on January 31. The anniversary performance follows Glass' recent release of his retrospective The Symphonies box set, a mammoth collection of his work issued in April by Nonesuch Records. BrooklynVegan recently reported on the reflective tome, naming the world-renowned orchestras involved in the recordings:

"Glass recently released an 11-CD box set titled The Symphonies, featuring his first 10 symphonies as performed by Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Vienna Radio Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel and Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. It's not available for streaming but you can order the box set or the digital version."

Conductor and longtime Glass cohort Dennis Russell Davies, a champion of modern composition, will be leading the Bruckner Orchestra Linz in Glass' new work this January. As noted at Hot Press, the performance will also include other renditions of Glass favorites:

"The Bruckner Orchestra Linz will perform Symphony No. 11 under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies. They will also performs Glass' Days and Nights in Rocinha and Ifé: Three Yorùbá Songs, which will be the latter piece's New York debut."

Philip Glass is often hailed as one of the greatest composers of modern minimalism to emerge in the late 20th century. The symphonist is frequently mentioned alongside other advancers of avant-garde orchestral performance like John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

As pointed out by Tiny Mix Tapes, nine symphonies is often mysteriously regarded as a "mystical limit" for many of the great composers. Austrian Romantic composer Gustav Mahler, early 19th century classicist Franz Schubert and even the legendary Ludwig van Beethoven all topped out with nine symphonies in total. Glass achieved his exceeding tenth symphony in 2012 and is now set to unveil his triumphant eleventh.

Listen to some of Glass' opera Einstein on the Beach below.

We want to hear from you. Let us know how you plan to mark the occasion of Mr. Glass’ 80th birthday in the comments section at the bottom of this page.

TagsPhilip Glass, Dennis Russell Davies, Bruckner Orchestra Linz, Vienna Radio Symphony, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ludwig van Beethoven