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Philip Glass appeared at the Crowden School in Berkeley today and talked to the combined student body for about an hour. He was introduced by Berkeley resident John Adams, who also prodded him with a few questions of his own.
The Crowden School, now celebrating its 25th year, is one of the few music-centric elementary/middle schools in the country. There are about 90 students in grades 4-8, with a rigorous music program as well as the normal academic curriculum. (My daughter Nora is a Crowden graduate, as are John Adams' two children).
Glass, whose opera Appomattox is happening this week at the SF Opera, is in town for a run of concerts, including our own Other Minds benefit tomorrow night (scroll down for info). So it was a great surprise to hear that he had some time to visit with the students at Crowden, who have just started their own composition program.
What was wonderful about the event were the questions posed by the students. "How do you find inspiration?", "Who do you like to collaborate with best?", and "Where do you get your ideas?".
Phil's answers were wide ranging and lengthy, but a couple of things he said were worth repeating.
About "inspiration" and "ideas", his general answer was "I don't really know". He explained that ever since he was a child he wondered what music was all about. He admitted that he still doesn't know, really, even though he's been involved with music all his life.
He reminded the students that when he went to school, all the public schools had active music programs and you could learn to play just about any instrument, and if you didn't have an instrument to play the school would give you one. He started out playing the flute.
The worst advice he got, he said, was from his teachers at Julliard who discouraged him from being an instrumentalist if he wanted to focus on composition, and be a composer. "This was wrong" he said. Being able to play an instrument really well always helps you as a composer. After all, he added, "I don't make the music, the performers do". And knowing the issues about performance are extremely helpful for composition.
Another wonderful point he made was the value of practice. "Most people" he said, "do not have a practice ... something they do by themselves every day." Having "a practice", something you do by yourself, be it meditation or practicing an instrument, or composing, is very important for life. I wonder if this really registered with the assembled kids, with all their after school activities, homework, and then hours of practice on their chosen instruments. But it is such an important statement.
He also said that he liked working in the theater because you must collaborate with many people. Collaboration sparks new ideas and situations you wouldn't confront on your own, and is a great source of ideas and inspiration. Also, working by yourself can get lonely, so it's nice to also be involved in such group activities, like the theater.
He was also asked about how being a Buddhist affects his music. His reply was really wonderful. It's the other way around, he said ... his music affects his life, whether it be being Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, whatever. His practice of music informs everything else he does and believes in.
Finally, John Adams asked if there was a moment when his signature minimalist musical style came to him. Was there a Eureka! moment, and if so what was it all about?
Phil said that yes, it did come as a sudden moment. Up to then he had been writing very standard 12-tone music in the academic Schoenbergian way (because it gave him a system out of which he could work). But after awhile he realized it was "too European" and had no meaning for himself. At the same time he was studying in Paris with Nadia Boulanger and working with Ravi Shankar as his assistant, and when asked to create some music for a production of a play by Samuel Beckett he thought about what would happen if he applied some of the techniques of standard counterpoint and harmony, as taught so strictly by Nadia Boulanger, to the rhythmic and melodic elements of Ravi Shankar's music. The result was something with lots of repeated phrases and totally different. In fact, he had a great deal of trouble getting performers to play this new music until he returned to New York City and got some of his friends to play it. At first he didn't quite know what to make of it, but developed it further, and is still developing the style that we by now know so well as his own.
Don't know how many students realized or registered the depth of some of the comments Phil made, which were deeply from the heart (how else do you talk to a group of 4th-8th graders?), but it was one of the best interviews I've heard him do.
At the end, John took the mike and addressed the students, saying "and now you can tell your parents that today we had a visit from Philip Glass!"
A great event. Thanks Phil, and I'll see you at tomorrow night's concert.
Photos of the event, by David Weiland, are here.
