Philip Glass
Even after Einstein on the Beach sold out the Metropolitan Opera in 1976, Philip Glass went back to driving a New York taxi.
His music grew from studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris and from transcribing for Ravi Shankar, whose rhythms showed him how long patterns could be built from small units. Rippling arpeggios repeat and shift by tiny degrees, played at first by his own amplified ensemble on works such as Music in Twelve Parts.
Glassworks brought that sound to a bigger audience, Koyaanisqatsi matched it to time-lapse images of modern life, and film scores like The Hours, along with the operas Satyagraha and Akhnaten, made him one of the most widely heard living composers.
If you like Philip Glass you should check out: Steve Reich, Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Arvo Pärt, Brian Eno, David Bowie, Tangerine Dream, Aphex Twin, Max Richter, Jóhann Jóhannsson
