
For those of you who saw my performance at the New York Encounter with the Shaw Street Collective in January, you might remember hearing the last piece in the program, which featured dancer Angeline Holmes.
When I was working on the NY Encounter material, there was a lot of Philip Glass music on my stereo system. Something about the pounding repetitions and swirling synths paints pictures of the ocean, both the literal ocean and the one in my soul.
During a call with our collaborators in December, we were trying to finalize music that Angeline could dance to during the performance. They really liked the idea of using Air And Simple Gifts by John Williams, which is an amazing piece, however not at all practical for our combination of instruments. We, on the other hand, thought that something by Philip Glass would be really effective. We couldn't come to an agreement. Finally, I said, sort of as a joke, "I guess we could just combine Philip Glass with Simple Gifts." The next day we were in rehearsal with my new piece, Simple Glass Gifts.
Here is us performing it at the Newman Centre Church in Toronto. Videography by Lucian FIlm.
When I was working on the NY Encounter material, there was a lot of Philip Glass music on my stereo system. Something about the pounding repetitions and swirling synths paints pictures of the ocean, both the literal ocean and the one in my soul.
During a call with our collaborators in December, we were trying to finalize music that Angeline could dance to during the performance. They really liked the idea of using Air And Simple Gifts by John Williams, which is an amazing piece, however not at all practical for our combination of instruments. We, on the other hand, thought that something by Philip Glass would be really effective. We couldn't come to an agreement. Finally, I said, sort of as a joke, "I guess we could just combine Philip Glass with Simple Gifts." The next day we were in rehearsal with my new piece, Simple Glass Gifts.
Here is us performing it at the Newman Centre Church in Toronto. Videography by Lucian FIlm.