“Acceptance Speech” Frontiers of Knowledge Award 2022 in Music and Opera

Acceptance speech by Philip Glass, winner of the 2022 Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Music and Opera, honored for his extraordinary contribution to musical creation and his influence on music in the 20th and 21st centuries. His career as a composer has transformed contemporary musical language through a distinctive style associated with minimalism, incorporating different cultural traditions and renewing genres such as opera, symphonic music and film scores.

Glass reviews his musical education, from his early studies in Baltimore to his training with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and his introduction to Indian music through Ravi Shankar. He recalls founding the Philip Glass Ensemble and collaborating with Robert Wilson on Einstein on the Beach, the first work in an operatic trilogy completed by Satyagraha and Akhnaten. He also reflects on opera as a meeting point for different artist

Acceptance speech by Philip Glass, winner of the 2022 Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Music and Opera, honored for his extraordinary contribution to musical creation and his influence on music in the 20th and 21st centuries. His career as a composer has transformed contemporary musical language through a distinctive style associated with minimalism, incorporating different cultural traditions and renewing genres such as opera, symphonic music and film scores.

Glass reviews his musical education, from his early studies in Baltimore to his training with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and his introduction to Indian music through Ravi Shankar. He recalls founding the Philip Glass Ensemble and collaborating with Robert Wilson on Einstein on the Beach, the first work in an operatic trilogy completed by Satyagraha and Akhnaten. He also reflects on opera as a meeting point for different artistic disciplines and on the satisfaction of creating works that, once shared with audiences, become part of a collective cultural heritage.