• the first violin concerto by Philip Glass was composed in honor of his father Ben, who died some sixteen years before the work's conception?
• operatic tenor Chad Shelton has sung in numerous world premieres, including leading roles in Mark Adamo's Little Women and Philip Glass's Appomattox?
• The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five, a science fiction novel by Doris Lessing, was adapted for the opera in 1997 by Philip Glass?
• Philip Glass composed a soundtrack in 1998, recorded by the Kronos Quartet, for the 1931 Dracula film starring Béla Lugosi?

Facts on topics related to Philip Glass

Music

• "James Brown is Dead" is an electronic dance music reference to James Brown and the widespread sampling of his music?
• visually impaired musicians can begin learning Music Braille once they are competent in grade-two level literary Braille?
• Ottaviano Petrucci's Harmonice Musices Odhecaton was the first music to be printed using movable type?
• soul singer Bettye Lavette's album Souvenirs was recorded in 1972, but was shelved by Atlantic Records until a French music collector discovered it and released it in 2000, sparking a continuing surge of interest in the singer?
• Oriental metal is a kind of death metal music that originated in Israel which has traditional Jewish and "Oriental" influences?
• Sigismondo d'India, a 17th century Italian composer, produced music in nearly all the forms of the day, including monody, madrigal and motet?
• parlour music is a term used to describe the unified style common to popular and semi-popular European lite-classical and popular, and folk-like music from 1790 until 1900?
• a suikinkutsu is a type of Japanese garden ornament and a music device?
• distinguished recipients of the Grawemeyer Award for music composition have included Witold Lutosławski, György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez and John Adams?
  
• the composer Zbigniew Preisner wrote the title music for the monumental BBC documentary People's Century, which spans 26 parts?

Pierre Boulez

• baritone Günter Reich recorded the part of Moses in Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron with both Michael Gielen and Pierre Boulez?
• distinguished recipients of the Grawemeyer Award for music composition have included Witold Lutosławski, György Ligeti, Pierre Boulez and John Adams?
  

Opera

• 18th-century operatic star Anna Maria Strada was known as "the Pig" on account of her ugliness?
• Aleksandr Pushkin's 1827 poem The Gypsies inspired some eighteen operas and six ballets, including Rachmaninoff's Aleko?
• Vivaldi's opera Griselda is based on the folklore character Griselda as told by Giovanni Boccaccio in the The Decameron?
• baritone William Dooley performed the title role in the world premiere of Marcel Mihalovici's one character opera Krapp, ou, La dernière bande in 1961?
• Camille Saint-Saëns's 1911 opera Déjanire was originally a 1898 play accompanied by symphonic music, choruses and a ballet?
• Camille Saint-Saëns's opera Hélène was recorded in 2008 after not being heard since 1919?
• Carnegie Medal-winning children’s author Berlie Doherty has written the libretti for three operas?
• Dave Burrell's operatic live jazz album Windward Passages was his response to land development in Hawaii during the late 1970's?
• English opera singer and actress Florence Perry (pictured) was best known for her performances with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the late 19th century?
• English theatre director Steven Pimlott directed a wide variety of performances from popular musicals, through avant garde theatre and Shakespeare, to opera?

Chamber music

• an Australian violist Richard Goldner founded Musica Viva Australia in 1945, the world's largest entrepreneurial chamber music organization?
• in addition to composing orchestral and chamber music, Joseph R. Wood arranged the Chiquita Banana song for Xavier Cugat?
• since 1969 more than 600 works of contemporary chamber music have been premiered at the festival Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik in the Ruhrgebiet, the European Capital of Culture for 2010?

Dmitri Shostakovich

• composer Veniamin Fleishman was killed early in WWII before he could complete his opera Rothschild's Violin, but that his teacher Dmitri Shostakovich rescued his sketches from besieged Leningrad, and completed the opera?
• during the midst of the Cold War, Alan Shulman and Dmitri Shostakovich were invited to join a Soviet–American composers' symposium organised by Nicolas Slonimsky for NBC?

Minimalist music

• Proverb, a piece by Steve Reich, was influenced both by minimalist techniques and medieval polyphony?