Glass & Cohen about collaboration

Everything about Leonard's 2006 book of poetry and Anjani's album
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tomsakic
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Glass & Cohen about collaboration

Post by tomsakic »

This article finally shares some light on how they met and did they actually work together at all. The wrong impression (at least mine) was that Glass bought the book and decided to compose some music:-) But it was the actual six-year work.

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Poetry by veteran artist Leonard Cohen put to music by composer Philip Glass
Cassandra Szklarski
Canadian Press
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

TORONTO (CP) - It was a casual phone call between celebrated composer Philip Glass and enigmatic poet Leonard Cohen that ultimately brought the pair together after years of mutual admiration.

Glass can't remember who called whom some six years ago, but the ensuing conversation led to an afternoon meeting in which the cerebral Montrealer read a stack of poetry manuscripts aloud to the composer and an idea was born.

Each artist knew what their next project would be: a collaboration that would somehow meld the mystique and romance of Cohen's words with the music of Glass.

This week, that pairing is realized in "Book of Longing," a concert piece that makes its world premiere Friday as part of the Toronto arts festival, Luminato.

"There's nothing like working with someone who is living in the time that you are and is thinking and addressing the issues mostly similar to my own life," Glass says of his relationship with Cohen and his poetry, published last year in a book also titled, "Book of Longing." That volume, 20 years in the making, was cobbled together from scratchings etched in Montreal, Mumbai and at Los Angeles's Zen Center, where Cohen was ordained as a Zen monk called Jikan. It also includes musings on the women the poet has known and loved.

"I could empathize very easily with the subject matter and the point of view," says Glass.

The 90-minute piece, to be performed by an ensemble of singers and musicians, features 22 of Cohen's poems put to music. Glass will be on keyboards and Cohen appears by way of a recording, in which he recites a handful of lyrical pieces.

The show runs June 1 to 3, and will be accompanied by a question-and-answer session held June 2 in which Glass and Cohen are set to discuss the piece with John Rockwell, former editor of the New York Times Arts and Leisure section.

Speaking by phone from Manhattan, Glass says he invited Cohen to take on a larger role in the project - by contributing ideas to the score or appearing in the show itself - but he declined.

Still, Glass says Cohen was generous with his support and encouraging throughout the process, which began in earnest some 15 months ago.

"He was very open with me and wanted me to feel free to compose the music that I would hear with those words and not to be influenced by what his choices might have been," says Glass, a prolific composer who has produced more than 20 operas, eight symphonies and several film soundtracks.

"One of the things I found out after I got to know him is that he knew a lot about what I had done. He had heard virtually everything I had ever performed in Los Angeles, which means a lot because I had gone there frequently over the years."

Unique collaborations have become a growing part of Glass' repertoire. His artistic partners have included the late poet Allen Ginsberg, British writer Doris Lessing and musicians Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt and Yo-Yo Ma.

Glass says his most recent work makes use of strings for a more unique sound, and that he included a quartet of singers for "variety and range."

And like Cohen's book of poetry, there is no obvious theme to the musical piece - Glass says he sought a sampling of Cohen's poems that touch on romance, biography, balladry, the dharma, limericks and rhymes.

"I wanted the experience of listening to the piece to be similar to what happens when you look through a book of poems but you don't look at it through sequentially," he says.

"It's a random kind of thing but in the course of time you actually encounter all the different aspects of the piece."

When it came time to turning them into musical pieces, the job was easy, he says.

"All the poetry Leonard has written as far as I could tell, were suitable for songs," says Glass, who turned 70 earlier this year.

"It seems like he was always sort of writing pieces that could be set to music."

Despite a reputation for being notoriously reclusive, Cohen has been popping up in several projects these days.

In addition to the collaboration with Glass, Cohen appears in the Luminato festival by way of an art exhibit featuring his journal drawings.

"Drawn to Words," an art exhibit of the singer-songwriter's light-hearted sketches, is being displayed at a gallery owned by theatre impresario Garth Drabinsky from June 4 to 10.

Sony is also reviving early recordings from the 72-year-old's career, a move that irked the veteran performer when recently asked about it in the U.S. press.

Cohen's first three albums from the late 1960s and early 1970s are being reissued, including never-before released tracks worked into the package. But Cohen said he never would have released those songs and suggested the ploy was little more than a money grab by the record label.

© The Canadian Press 2007
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mdidier
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Re: Glass & Cohen about collaboration

Post by mdidier »

wow.... Chicago Premiere in 10 days.... (3 hours from my home) :o
http://www.ravinia.org/BuyTickets/event ... w=99793683

I wonder if this music will be recorded for sale? anyone know?

then, another of my interests (US Civil War) is being enshrined in a new opera... commissioned by the San Francisco Opera... to premiere this October....

From Glass' website:
http://www.philipglass.com/news.php

Current Works:
Book of Longing
A new work by Philip Glass based on the poetry of Leonard Cohen. World Premiere: June 1, 2007 at Luminato Festival in Toronto, Ontario (Canada).

Appomattox
A new Philip Glass opera based on the American Civil War. Commissioned by San Francisco Opera. Libretto by Christopher Hampton, directed by George Wolf. World Premiere: October 2007 at San Francisco Opera.

Casssandra's Dream
Directed by Woody Allen featuring a new film score by Philip Glass, Summer 2007
Life is the final riddle, we all give up on it eventually...
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