BIOS SUZANNE VEGA Suzanne Vega emerged as a leading figure of the folk-music revival of the early 1980s when, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, she sang what have been labelled contemporary folk or neo-folk songs of her own creation in Greenwich Village clubs. Our heart is definitely with the esthetics of his early vinyl record North Star, 1977, in which a certain approach occurs that some critics have called “alterminimalism”. ‘Einstein’ still bears the traces of the radical musical experiments the composer conducted in his youth that were thought of as formal ‘etudes’ ( Music in Fifths, Music in Contrary Motion.) and is developed by accumulation of very short musical motifs that are submitted to processes of augmentation or arithmetical subtraction that dazzle the listener Some music lovers might prefer Philip Glass’s music to be played pompous and neoclassical we kindly suggest to them to stay at home. In addition to that Glass calls for a soloistic violinist, who was supposed to be the incarnation of the character of Albert Einstein himself.

Indeed, for this concert there is no scenic extravaganza, no ambitious gesamtkunstwerk in the sense of the original Wilson/Glass/Childs production.

The door of the concert hall will be kept open throughout the performance (the audience is free to wander in and out), the gap between stage and audience blurred thanks to Germaine Kruip’s visual intervention to be viewed as a contemporary art installation. In this way we want to create a minimalistic sound-bath of more than 3 hours length that reconnects to the freshness and radicality of early minimalism. We opt for a long-stretched performance (very close to the full score composed for the actual opera).

The focus of this production is the musical score itself and the musical sound of the libretto. It presents a sheer musical approach to the full score of the legendary Glass/Wilson opera where the virtuosic instrumental, singing parts and crystalline structure of the piece are enhanced by a site-specific approach and a sophisticated sound design. PRESENTATION AND CONCEPT This concert version of Einstein on the Beach by Philip Glass is a collaboration between Suzanne Vega, Ictus Ensemble, Collegium Vocale Gent and the visual artist Germaine Kruip.

Einstein on the beach philip glass rar