Philip Glass

Philip Glass, (born January 31, 1937, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.), American composer of innovative instrumental, vocal, and operatic music.

Glass studied flute as a boy and enrolled at age 15 at the University of Chicago, where he studied mathematics and philosophy and graduated in 1956. His interest in atonalmusic drew him on to study composition at the Juilliard School of Music (M.S., 1962) in New York City and then to Paris to study under Nadia Boulanger. His acquaintance there with the Indian sitarist Ravi Shankardecisively affected Glass’s compositional style, and he temporarily jettisoned such traditional formal qualities as harmony, tempo, and melody in his music.