Iconic composer and pianist Philip Glass caps a residency at the University of Notre Dame with a remarkably intimate evening of chamber music with the charismatic violinist Tim Fain and Grammy-winning ensemble Third Coast Percussion. The highly anticipated concert takes place on Saturday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the Leighton Concert Hall.
An Evening of Chamber Music featuring Philip Glass, Tim Fain, and Third Coast Percussion offers the campus and greater community a once-in-a-lifetime encounter with a legendary living composer. The evening’s planned program highlights compositions traversing Glass’s career. In the first half, Glass and Fain share the stage to perform works for solo piano, solo violin, and duos. Among them are the technically challenging “Chaconnes” from Glass’s renowned Partita for Solo Violin written for Fain. After intermission, Third Coast Percussion performs Glass’s first work for percussion ensemble, Perpetulum, commissioned by the Chicago-based quartet.
Of commissioning Glass, Third Coast’s Robert Dillon wrote, “Although percussion instruments have played an important role in much of Philip Glass’s music and a number of his works have been arranged for percussion by other musicians, Glass had never composed a work for percussion ensemble until Third Coast Percussion commissioned Perpetulum. Glass is now 82 years old, but when composing this work, he harkened back to childhood memories of his first experience with percussion instruments. Though Glass’s primary musical instrument was the flute, he had the opportunity to participate in a percussion class while a student at the Preparatory Division of the Peabody Conservatory in his hometown of Baltimore. Perpetulum blends an almost child-like exploration of the sounds of percussion with Glass’s signature musical voice.”
Other events during Philip Glass’s residency include the Thursday, March 28 screening of the Godfrey Reggio film Koyaanisqatsi (1982) at 7 p.m. scored by Glass who is scheduled to appear at the Browning Cinema event. Then, Notre Dame’s Department of Music honors the composer with a Friday, March 29 at 8 p.m. concert titled Reflections: Glass featuring the Notre Dame Symphony Orchestra and student chamber ensembles performing excerpts from the 2018 Kennedy Center Honoree’s symphonic and small ensemble works.
