by Richard Kostelanetz (July 2012)

Born 31 January 1937, to the day 140 years after Franz Schubert, Philip Glass grew up in Baltimore, the son of a record shop proprietor who fortuitously took home the modern-music discs that didn’t sell. As a teenager, Philip attended his city’s toughest public high school (called “City College”) while taking lessons in the flute at the local Peabody Conservatory. He matriculated early (at 16) at the University of Chicago, which has always been a more serious school, and then to Juilliard, then as now the most daunting music conservatory in America.  more>>>