The History of American Classical Music

Throughout his childhood and early career, Philip Glass received a relatively traditional and classical musical training. It was not until he met and studied with Ravi Shankar, Indian sitar virtuoso, that Glass was introduced to the mysterious world of Hindu ragas and modern musical styles. In the late 1960s, Glass formed associations with modern painters and sculptors who strove to obtain maximum effects with a minimum of means. Glass attempted to do the same in his music; he developed a technique of composition that was dubbed "minimalism."

In 1976 the Metropolitan Opera House presented Einstein on the Beach, Glass's first opera and the work that placed him and minimalism in music history. In 1986 he wrote The Voyage for the Met; an opera that commemorated the five-hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World.

The Portuguese government commissioned Glass to write an opera in honor of the nation's sea explorations. The result, White Raven, centers on the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, who sailed around the southern tip of Africa and established a maritime route to India. In 2015 he made The New York Times Best Seller List with his title, Words Without Music.

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