MUSIC WITH CHANGING PARTS

PART: LAMENTATE THESE WORDS

SPIRIT OF THE EARTH

180 Gram Black Vinyl, tip-on jacket, limited to 2000. Philip Glass will share a new album, Philip Glass Solo, on January 26 via Orange Mountain Music. The collection is an intimate portrait of the renowned pianist at 84, as he takes a new look at some of his most enduring and beloved piano works. "This record revisits my works for piano. From 2020-2021, I had time at home to practice the works I have played for many years. This record is both a time capsule of 2021, and a reflection on decades of composition and practice. In other words, a document on my current thinking about the music. There is also the question of place. This is my piano, the instrument on which most of the music was written. It's also the same room where I have worked for decades in the middle of the energy which New York City itself has brought to me. The listener may hear the quiet hum of New York in the background or feel the influence of time and memory that this space affords. To the degree possible, I made this record to invite the listener in." - Philip Glass, November 2023. Philip Glass Solo was recorded at a time when the world was undergoing a major shift-for Glass, that shift manifested in going from a busy tour and premiere schedule to time spent at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. Glass dedicated this time to revisiting some of his most critically acclaimed piano music, taking to them with a new view in his home studio in New York. It is his most personal record to date, offering a snapshot of his life, and a portrait of daily practice over eight decades through several cherished works.

Over a period of many years, filmmaker Mickey Lemle set about capturing a portrait of His Holines the Dalai Lama, now in his mid-80s, as he travelled the world talking about his life, compassion, his disciplines, and his work. The film commissioned original music from Philip Glass and Tibetan musician Tenzin Choegyal. The score is performed by Glass and Michael Riesman on pianos, Tenzin Choegyal on vocals and various Tibetan instruments, Tim Fain on Violin, Robert Black on double bass, and the Scorchio String. Quintessential traditional offering, "Om Ma Mi Phad may Hum" can be heard in "Heart Strings," sung by 150 Tibetan children. The album ends with Philip Glass's own live performance of Mad Rush, composed for the Dalai Lama's first public address in New York in 1978.

GLASS: A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM

Orange Mountain Music is proud to announce the release of the iconic 1979 work DANCE by choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Philip Glass, and film by Sol LeWitt. "See the music, hear the dance." Never was the great George Balanchine's exhortation more fully realized than in DANCE. DANCE, American dancer and choreographer Lucinda Childs's first major show, is set to an especially commissioned score by Philip Glass, and framed by a video by the visual artist Sol LeWitt. Three exponents of Minimalism in their respective fields come together to create something that was once justly described as "close to stage heaven." A work of uncompromising purity, it's choreography meticulously follows every subtle nuance and shifting pattern of Philip Glass's score, so that you can see the music in the bodies of the 12-white clad dancers, the audiences two senses, sight and hearing, completely fused. LeWitt shot a film of the dance, and then cut, layered and floated it onto a scrim over the live performance. The dancers in Sol LeWitt's film, featuring Lucinda Childs herself, appear to flit through the live dancers. The result is one of the most popular ballets of the 20th century. Filmed in Paris in 2014 by the director Marie-Helene Rebois, produced by Daphnie Productions with the participation of France Televisions, the performance was produced by Pomegranate Arts.

Philip Glass' Academy Award-nominated music for the 2002 Stephen Daldry film, The Hours, is one of his finest scores, generating a mood of gentle melancholy and emotional depth. Anton Batagov has long been a faithful champion of Glass' piano music and here he offers, on the composer's own label, the piano version of the score. It's beautifully controlled and, at times, overwhelming in it's ability to touch the heart. "Distant Figure (Passcaglia for Solo Piano)" is a piece for piano that started life as a miniature and has been developed. Like The Hours, it's delicate, evocative, and exquisitely controlled.

INTRODUCING THE SUSO / GLASS QUARTET

This soundtrack for the film Samurai Marathon, directed by Bernard Rose, is comprised of excerpts of Philip Glass works. Including music from Mishima, Symphonies Nos. 2, 3 and 8, Naqoyqatsi and his operas Akhnaten and Satyagraha, these new recordings are performed by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Richard Hein.

This special release coincides with the launch of the Philip Glass Institute and the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Philip Glass Ensemble. The group, now in residence at The New School, remains the authority on Glass's early music. Orange Mountain's two-disc set features legendary recordings of Philip Glass works from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Included are Music with Changing Parts, Two Pages, Music in Contrary Motion, Music in Fifths, and Music in Similar Motion. Originally released on the long-lost Chatham Square label and re-released by Nonesuch Records in the 1990s, these seminal Glass recordings have been out of print for many years.

Classical Music

Classical Music

Composed and conceived by Lisa Bielawa with a libretto by Erik Ehn, Vireo - The Spiritual Biography of a Witch's Accuser is an opera in twelve episodes, created for television and online viewing. The eponymous heroine Vireo, played by Rowen Sabala, is a fourteen-year-old girl genius entangled in the historic obsession with female visionaries as they are defined by witch-hunters, early psychiatrists, and modern artists. Directed by Charles Otte, the opera removes the set limitations of a staged opera by shooting on location across the country in places such as Alcatraz, a monastery on the Hudson River, an abandoned train station in Oakland and the California Redwoods. The traditional pit orchestra is replaced by a cast of over 350 world-class musicians, on camera and inside the action. Featured artists include vocalists Deborah Voigt, Laurie Rubin, Gregory Purnhagen and Ryan Glover along with the Kronos Quartet, the San Francisco Girls Chorus, Alarm Will Sound, and more.

Orange Mountain Music presents a new album by the outstanding San Francisco Girls Chorus conducted by Valerie Sainte-Agathe. This new recording features music by composers Philip Glass, Lisa Bielawa, Gabriel Kahane, John Zorn, Carla Kihlstedt, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Sahba Aminikia, Matthew Welch and Theo Bleckmann. It includes remarkable performances by featured performers including the Kronos Quartet, Andy Meyerson on vibraphone, Matthew Welch on bagpipes, and vocalist Theo Bleckmann.

At 100 minutes long, Glass's Fifth Symphony is his magnum symphonic opus. The piece reflects a journey of human experiences through texts of the world's various 'Wisdom Traditions' (religions). Because of it's size, the piece is rarely performed. Conductor Julian Wachner played the symphony at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC in November 2016 and immediately resolved to make a new recording with the full resources of Trinity Wall Street in New York including NOVUS NY, Trinity Choir, Trinity Children's Choir, Downtown Voices and soloists Heather Buck, Katherine Pracht, Vale Rideout, Stephen Salters, and David Cushing. A bonus DVD features a concert video of the performance at Trinity Church in New York City, and an extended interview with Julian Wachner and Philip Glass.