The grandson of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Russia, Glass developed an early love for music working in his father's record store in Baltimore. He graduated from the University of Chicago with an AB (math and philosophy) in 1956 and received his MA (composition) from Juilliard in 1962 before going to Paris to study with Nadine Boulanger on a Fulbright scholarship. In Paris, he came under the influence of sitar virtuoso Ravi Shankar, embracing not only the addictive rhythmical structure of Eastern music, but also the spiritual world to which Shankar introduced him, Buddhism. After transcribing the legendary sitarist's music into notation readable by French musicians, Glass journeyed to India and discovered the massive population of displaced Tibetans, whom he has assisted ever since, performing benefits and speaking out against their mistreatment.
The success of "Einstein on the Beach" had as much to do with its theatrical presentation as the music. With strong roots in the theater as a director and co-founder of the Mabou Mines company, Glass collaborated with director-designer Robert Wilson on "Einstein", the two arguing that opera can do without narrative action and conventional arias. They have worked together frequently since on projects like "the CIVIL warS" (1982) and "The White Raven (O Corvo Blanco)" (1998). Glass's second opera "Satyagraha" (1980), about Gandhi and nonviolent political resistance, continued on the path blazed in "Einstein", its music remaining on its own rhapsodic plane, a symbol of a higher, liberating force which Gandhi taps. He completed his trilogy based on great men with "Akhnaten" (1984).
Glass has drawn inspiration from a variety of sources, including the movies of Jean Cocteau (who died in 1963) and the pioneering albums of the David Bowie-Brian Eno collaboration in the late 70s. In 1990, he began composing a trilogy of operas using Cocteau's films "Orphee", "La Belle et la Bete" and "Les Enfants Terribles" as libretti, and the performance of "Les Enfants Terribles" in 1997 brought that cycle to a close. Glass first adapted Bowie-Eno with his "Low" Symphony in 1991 and followed with the "Heroes" Symphony (c. 1997). Twyla Tharp used the works for her dance company, and Glass later assembled the six movements into a stand-alone symphony. He has also collaborated with pop-music artists Suzanne Vega and Richard James, aka The Aphex Twin.
Glass, who has notched more than a dozen film scores, brilliantly complemented the fluid, poetic images of Godfrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" (1982) and "Powaqqatsi" (1988) and also co-directed with Reggio the documentary short "Anima Mundi/The Soul of the World" (1991). He provided music for Paul Schrader's highly stylized "Mishima: A Life in Four Acts" (1985) and ex-wife JoAnne Akalaitis' documentary "Dead End Kids" (1986). His music also greatly enhanced the Errol Morris documentaries "The Thin Blue Line" (1988) and "A Brief History of Time" (1992). Among his more notable scores for fictional movies, Glass scored "Candyman" (1992) and its sequel "Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh" (1995) and "Bent" (1997), before undertaking a subject very close to his heart with Martin Scorsese's "Kundun" (1997), a biographical portrait of the current Dalai Lama. Having previously recorded Gyuto monks of the Drupka Order along with Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart and Japanese artist Kitaro, he worked the monks into the fabric of the "Kundun" score, fusing Tibetan and Western music into something that was pure Glass.
Glass' unconcern for beginnings and endings operates more in the manner of Nature than our egos, and of course that is the message of the Dalai Lama: The individual must learn to transcend selfish personal concerns to become in tune with the larger world of nature and mankind. He continues to add to his unique oeuvre, producing a wide variety of music for film, dance, opera, ensemble and symphony orchestra without remaining a prisoner of minimalism, but despite harmony creeping into his later work, Glass still celebrates mathematical profundity as he counts his successes.