Philip Morris Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist whose work helped establish minimalism as one of the defining musical languages of the late 20th century. His music is associated with repeated melodic figures, steady rhythmic motion, gradual harmonic change and layers of sound that evolve through accumulation rather than conventional dramatic development. Glass has often resisted the minimalist label, preferring to describe his approach as "music with repetitive structures."
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Glass developed an early interest in music while working in his father's radio store. He entered the University of Chicago at an unusually young age, studying mathematics and philosophy alongside music. He later attended the Juilliard School and studied composition with Darius Milhaud. A decisive period followed in Paris, where he worked with Nadia Boulanger. During the 1960s, Glass also collaborated with Ravi Shankar and became deeply interested in Indian music. The experience changed his understanding of rhythm, repetition and musical time, encouraging him to move away from the more complex compositional techniques prevalent in American concert music at the time.
After returning to New York in 1967, Glass formed the Philip Glass Ensemble. The group, built around keyboards, woodwinds, amplification and a distinctive sound system, provided a practical outlet for his developing style. Its performances became closely linked with the downtown experimental scene, where music, theater, dance and visual art frequently overlapped. Glass's early works, including "Music with Changing Parts" and "Music in Twelve Parts," established the expansive, hypnotic character of his mature language.
His international reputation grew rapidly through "Einstein on the Beach," the 1976 opera created with director Robert Wilson and choreographer Lucinda Childs. Rather than following a traditional narrative structure, the work used recurring images, abstract stage action, spoken numbers and sustained musical processes. Its success demonstrated that experimental music theater could reach audiences far beyond the usual contemporary-music world. Glass continued to explore historical and spiritual subjects in operas such as "Satyagraha," based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, and "Akhnaten," about the ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Later stage works include "The Voyage," commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera, and "The Perfect American," centered on Walt Disney.
Glass has also written extensively for orchestras, chamber groups, solo piano, dance and theater. The accessible piano pieces collected in "Glassworks" and "Solo Piano" helped bring his music to listeners who might not otherwise have encountered contemporary classical composition. His concert works include symphonies, concertos and string quartets, often extending his repetitive techniques into larger and more varied forms.
Film music became another major part of his career. His score for Godfrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" (1982) created a powerful bond between moving images and musical repetition, and Glass later contributed to the entire Qatsi trilogy. He scored films including "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters," "The Thin Blue Line," "Kundun," "The Hours," "The Truman Show," "The Fog of War" and "Notes on a Scandal." His work for "Kundun," "The Hours" and "Notes on a Scandal" earned Academy Award nominations.
Glass has collaborated with artists from many fields, including David Bowie, Brian Eno, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Yo-Yo Ma and Allen Ginsberg. Through opera houses, concert halls, cinemas and popular recordings, he made a once-specialized musical vocabulary broadly recognizable while continuing to expand its emotional and structural possibilities.