Center for 21st Century Music Plans Inaugural Concert Featuring Philip Glass

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Center for 21st Century Music in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo will present its Inaugural Concert featuring Philip Glass at 7 p.m. Sept. 18 in the Mainstage Theatre, located at the Center for the Arts on the UB North (Amherst) Campus.

The concert is made possible with major funding from Robert G. and Carol L. Morris, The Cameron Baird Foundation, The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, The Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University, the University at Buffalo, the New York State Music Fund, and other generous sponsors.

Tickets at $25 for general public, $15 for UB Alumni, and $10 for students will go on sale July 14 at 10 am at the Center for the Arts Box Office (M-F, 10-6), Ticketmaster outlets and ticketmaster.com.

The Center for 21st Century Music will open its inaugural concert series with the Slee Sinfonietta, and special guest, Philip Glass, with a special concert held in conjunction with the visit to UB by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The evening's events will include presentation of a new work entitled "Chasmal" by Center Director David Felder and a video by Elliot Caplan in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall at 6:30 p.m. At 7 pm, the music of Philip Glass will be performed on the Center for the Arts Mainstage.

Glass will speak and answer questions from the audience following the concert. At 8:45pm, Martin Scorsese's film "Kundun," about the early life of the 14th Dalai Lama -- with Academy-Award nominated score by Philip Glass -- will be shown in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall and the Student Union Theater. The evening's events in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall and in the Student Union Theater will be free and open to the public. Tickets will be required to attend the performance in the Center for the Arts.

The concert program will include the opening fanfare, "Epithalamium" by Charles Wuorinen, as well as Glass compositions "Songs of Milarepa" and "Symphony No. 3." "Songs of Milarepa" is a 24- minute work for baritone and chamber orchestra commissioned by Sagra Musicale Umbra (Umbra Sacred Music Festival). It is music set to poems by the 11th-century Tibetan saint and poet Milarepa. Glass arranged the texts in the form of a common Tibetan Buddhist tradition. "Symphony No. 3" is a 24-minute work for string orchestra commissioned by the Würth Foundation for the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra.

Philip Glass is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the Juilliard School. In the early 1960s, Glass spent two years of intensive study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and earned money by transcribing Ravi Shankar's Indian music into Western notation. Upon his return to New York, he applied these Eastern techniques to his own music.

By 1974, Glass had a number of significant and innovative projects, creating a large collection of new music for his performing group, The Philip Glass Ensemble, and for the Mabou Mines Theater Company, which he co-founded. This period culminated in "Music in Twelve Parts" followed by the landmark opera, "Einstein on the Beach," created with Robert Wilson in 1976. Since Einstein, Glass has expanded his repertoire to include music for opera, dance, theater, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and film. His score for Martin Scorsese's "Kundun" received an Academy Award nomination while his score for Peter Weir's "The Truman Show" won him a Golden Globe. His film score for Stephen Daldry's "The Hours" received Golden Globe, Grammy, and Academy Award nominations, along with winning a BAFTA in Film Music from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. Glass remains a very active composer and touring artist. Philip Glass has been a regular visitor to the University at Buffalo's contemporary musical events over many years.

Tickets for the Inaugural Concert featuring Philip Glass are $25, UB Alumni $15, and $10 for students. Tickets are available at the Center Box Office (Mon.-Fri. 10am-6pm) and all Ticketmaster locations including ticketmaster.com. To charge tickets call 852-5000, in Canada 1-416-870-8000. For more information call 645-ARTS. For Group Sales, call 645-6771. The Center for the Arts is a TICKETFAST location.