Composed 1993-99; 13 minutes
The repetitive structures and meditative harmonies of Glass’s music have allowed it to exist in many versions for different musical instruments. Selections from his piano etudes were arranged in the late 1990s for a project with Brazilian musical group Uakti. This version, for Uakti’s unique gamut of custom-made instruments, was part of a project called Aguas da Amazonia, in which all the movements were renamed after the Amazon River and its tributaries.
Long-time fans of Glass’s work and hoping to someday commission the iconic composer for his first percussion ensemble piece, the members of Third Coast Percussion arranged a handful of these pieces for their multi-media project Paddle to the Sea in 2016. Drawing on both the Uakti arrangement and the original piano music, TCP reimagined these works using mallet percussion instruments and other unique instrumental colors such as melodica, desk bells and almglocken (tuned Swiss cowbells). In 2020, TCP made their own arrangements of the rest of the Aguas da Amazonia to round out the collection, premiering the full cycle at the Philharmonie de Paris in 2021.
Glass celebrated his 85th birthday in 2022 with a series of online concerts “Philip Glass: Three Cities,” with prominent artists performing Glass’s work in the three cities that formed his musical identity: Chicago, New York and Baltimore. The Chicago portion of the series featured TCP performing movements from Aguas da Amazonia in Mandel Hall at the University of Chicago, where Glass attended many concerts as a student.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. By 1974, Glass had created a large collection of music for The Philip Glass Ensemble, culminating in the landmark opera, Einstein on the Beach. Since Einstein, Glass’s repertoire has grown to include music for opera, dance, theater, orchestra and film. His scores have received Academy Award nominations (Kundun, The Hours, Notes on a Scandal) and a Golden Globe (The Truman Show). Recent works include Glass’s memoir, Words Without Music, by Liveright Books, Glass’s first Piano Sonata, opera Circus Days and Nights and Symphony No. 14. Glass received the Praemium Imperiale in 2012, the U.S. National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama in 2016 and the 41st Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.