Philip Glass Ensemble

The Philip Glass Ensemble is a musical group founded by composer Philip Glass in 1968 to serve as a performance outlet for his experimental minimalist music. The Ensemble's instrumentation became a hallmark of Glass' early minimalist style. After Glass wrote his first opera, Einstein on the Beach, for the Ensemble in 1976, he began to compose for other instrumentation more frequently, but he still retains the core ensemble instrumentation.

While the Ensemble's exact instrumentation has varied over the years, it has generally consisted of amplified woodwinds, keyboard synthesizers, and solo soprano voice (singing solfege). The Philip Glass Ensemble continues to perform and record, under the musical direction of keyboardist Michael Riesman.

In 2011, individuals from the ensemble performed a series of concerts in an installation at the Museum of Modern Art. The group continues to perform around the world and will continue so. In 2012 the ensemble is presenting, along with many other talented performers, a revival of Einstein on the Beach in Montpellier, London, Toronto, Brooklyn, Berkeley, and Mexico City. This production is a wonderful slice of Glass from the 1970s if you just close your eyes and listen.