Glasses

Ira writes: A few months ago I made my classical music debut in a concert with my cousin - there is no way to say this that doesn't sound impossibly pretentious - Philip Glass. It wasn't an intimidating venue. He was playing with a sextet at the Apple Store in Soho, a show that was recorded to sell on the iTunes store.

I do a piece that Philip used to perform onstage with Allen Ginsberg. They were close friends. It's Ginsberg's poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra" set to a piano score. I love this poem and know well the original recording they did of it together. It was incredibly fun to read the poem while Philip played next to me, and here's the thing I can tell you about reading onstage with my cousin the famous composer: he plays really really loud. It's like reading a poem next to a helicopter.

You can get my piece, or the whole concert, here.

If you go to the site, the most amazing parts of the show were the excepts from Symphony No. 3 played by the sextet. That piece is gorgeous, with these six melodies weaving against each other in the most beautiful way, and their performance was kind of breathtaking.