Philip Glass and Opera Pacific founder David DiChiera win $25,000 opera award

The National Endowment for the Arts' $25,000 NEA Opera Honors lifetime achievement awards for 2010 will go to composer Philip Glass, soprano Martina Arroyo, opera executive David DiChiera and music director Eve Queler.

Ceremonies will be Oct. 22 at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, with a video tribute to each recipient and a concert produced by the Washington National Opera.

Glass, 73, has applied his minimalist style to an operatic oeuvre that includes "Einstein on the Beach," "Satyagraha" and "Akhnaten."   "the CIVIL WarS," one of his collaborations with director Robert Wilson, is a 12-hour work originally intended to premiere at the 1984 Olympic Art Festival in Los Angeles until funding fell apart.

DiChiera,  75, played a role in Southern California opera as founding general director of Opera Pacific from 1985 to 1996. While the Costa Mesa company folded under financial strain in 2008, DiChiera continues as general director of Detroit's Michigan Opera Theatre, which he founded in 1970 and led concurrently with his tenure at Opera Pacific.

Arroyo, 74, faced racial barriers early in her career; the daughter of Puerto Rican and African American parents was a teacher and social worker in New York City before getting a break in 1958 in a production at Carnegie Hall. She began performing at the Metropolitan Opera as well, with a 1965 "Aida" her first lead role there. President Ford appointed her to a six-year term on the National Council for the Arts, an advisory body for the NEA.

Queler, 74, is the founding artistic director of the Opera Orchestra of New York, established in 1971.

-- Mike Boehm

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Photo: Philip Glass conducts his ensemble and the L.A. Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2009. Credit: Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Mike]

Minimalism is for composers who can't write real music.

[The Photographer- greatest music ever]

Hey Mike,

I hope you hear me driving around blasting Glass on my 2000 watt car stereo system! LOL!

GLASS RULES, NOBODY ELSE CAN COMPARE!

[Donald Frazell]

Teenagers, probably got subwoofers like my kid and play tht wimpy new disneyish techno hip hop too, what iS that crap?

America has had many great composers, and musicians. Miles, Monk, Coltrane, Shorter, Dolphy, Coleman,....
And wimpy bombastic Glass belongs no where near this list.
Academic self absorbed drivel. Yech.
art e musica collegia delenda est

[Glass fan since 1983]

Just another jealous Glass hater. Glass is wimpy? All those musicians you mentioned get their doors blown off by Glass. Shorter? Dolphy? Give me a break!

[Donald Frazell]

Shorter, Dolphy Miles et al fan since 1975, and been irritated by droning bombaastic inanities with no rhythm by Glass since before Koyanasqatsi
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Art school pablum, on a par with Talking Heads and Lou Reed. Simply written for masses of penguin suited players to amplify in choreographed depthless dreariness. Try In a Silent Way or Traane's Ccreescent for music, of humanity, nature and god, not ddddweeby art students.

[Glass fan since 1983]

Donald, do you ever write anything in actual English?

So you can't stand Philip Glass, and can't resist adding your nonsense to any LA Times article that mentions Glass. As Glass himself says right off at the start of Scott Hicks' film (Glass: A Portrait of Philip in 12 Parts), "If you don't like my music, listen to something else. There's a lot of music out there; you don't have to listen to mine. Go! Listen to something else! I don't care!"

Glass loves his real fans more than all of your favorite musicians combined. I've met Glass myself several times over the years. Not only is he a genius, he is the coolest, classiest, and nicest man imaginable!

The logic and beauty in his music is UNTOUCHABLE by anybody!

I feel sorry for you Donald- you're missing out on all the incredible fun and joy of being a Glass fan!