American composer Philip Glass will be celebrated with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the film music concert Minimalism in Motion: Glass, Nyman and Beyond which will close Film Fest Gent’s Film Music Days 2025 and the 25th World Soundtrack Awards. While initially renowned for his work for opera and his symphonies, Glass has made an equally impressive contribution to film music, with a rich oeuvre of film scores that include Koyaanisqatsi, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, The Truman Show, Kundun, The Hours and Notes on a Scandal.
Philip Glass is minimalism, minimalism is Philip Glass. Even if he prefers to call his own pieces “music with repetitive structures”, it’s hard to separate him from this movement, as Glass was at the helm of this musical turn in the 1960’s. Minimalism became a new musical language and proved that less really could be more.
Not only are Glass’s scores an essential part of film music history – legendary film scores for The Truman Show, Kundun and Koyaanisqatsi are just a few examples – they changed what film music as an art form itself could be. Glass is one of the first composers to introduce minimalism to the world of film music and recognize that cinema doesn’t always ask for big, thrilling scores. With his characteristic repetitive style, he intensified the intimate and compelling nature of the films he scored. Brussels Philharmonic, conducted by maestro Dirk Brossé, will play a selection of these works by Glass during the this year’s film music concert Minimalism in Motion: Glass, Nyman and Beyond.
Glass’s work has been recognized at the World Soundtrack Awards in 2007 with two nominations for his score for Notes on a Scandal.
From Baltimore to Paris
Born in 1937 in Baltimore, Maryland, Glass grew up with an early appreciation for music through his father who owned a record store. Having access to many promotional copies inspired Glass to listen to and appreciate music in a different way at a young age. He eventually went on to study at Juilliard School of Music, where he honed his skills on the keyboard. A couple of years later, Glass received a scholarship to move to Paris. His studies there from 1964 to 1966 with the rigorous, but nonetheless legendary music teacher Nadia Boulanger were formative years and influenced his work profoundly.
The richness of minimalism
Although mostly known for his association with the movement of minimalist music, Glass has tried to distance himself from this label, as he prefers to be known for composing “music with repetitive structures”. Still, it is hard to separate him from this movement, as he was a key figure in this new musical trend that appeared in the 1960’s. Among others, La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Meredith Monk and Steve Reich were developing this new musical language alongside Glass, where at the surface not much seems to happen. However, this couldn’t be further away from the truth, according to the minimalists themselves. “What’s interesting about this so-called ‘minimalist music’ is how rich it is,” Glass said in an interview with NPR in 2015. “The description doesn’t come close to telling you what you hear.”
In 1968, Glass founded his own ensemble, though he is not an active member anymore. Glass’s opera Einstein on the Beach in 1976, a colossal five-hour-long piece that immediately proved his strained relationship with the ‘minimalist’ label, was his first opera and immediately a breakthrough moment. This was followed by Satyagraha (1980) and Akhnaten (1983), which completed the so-called “Portrait trilogy”, a series of operas about men who changed the world.
From Shankar to Eno
Not only are Glass’s scores an essential part of film music history, they changed what film music as an art form itself could be. Glass is one of the first composers to introduce minimalism to the world of film music and recognize that cinema doesn’t always ask for big, thrilling scores. With his characteristic repetitive music, he intensified the intimate and compelling nature of the films he scored. With his Academy Award-nominated scores for Martin Scorsese’s Kundun and Stephen Daldry’s The Hours, he redefined not only the meaning, but just as much the potential of film music. He influenced renowned composers like Hans Zimmer, whose score for Interstellar pays a close homage to Glass’s score for Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, but also artists and bands outside of the classical field like Aphex Twin and Radiohead. This influence even extended to collaborations with these non-classical artists. Rock, ambient, electric and world musicians such as Brian Eno and David Bowie who were admirers of his minimalist music, connected with Glass at some point in their careers. The aforementioned Aphex Twin, Ravi Shankar, David Byrne, Nathalie Merchant, and many others have also collaborated with Glass, both on songs and albums.
This year’s WSA Film Music Days will be held from 14-16 October 2025, during Film Fest Gent (8-19 October).
Philip Glass will be honoured on 16 October 2025, at Muziekcentrum De Bijloke at the film music concert Minimalism in Motion: Glass, Nyman and Beyond which will close Film Fest Gent’s Film Music Days 2025. During this concert, a selection of Philip Glass’s work will be performed by the Brussels Philharmonic conducted by maestro Dirk Brossé, who personally presented the award to Philip Glass in New York.
