Lavinia Meijer The Glass Effect The Music by Philip Glass

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Sony Classical announces the release of the new album of harpist Lavinia Meijer “The Glass Effect – The Music by Philip Glass” on November 4, 2016.

It was five years ago that Dutch-Korean harpist Lavinia Meijer first met legendary composer, Philip Glass, who is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential composers of the 20th century.  It marked the beginning of a new musical journey for her, as, with Glass’s guidance, Meijer began to explore minimal music. For the past year, Lavinia Meijer has focused on transcribing Glass’ Piano Etudes for Harp, a process in which Philip Glass himself was very much involved, actively supporting and encouraging Lavinia Meijer in her arrangement choices of his works for this new album. Philip Glass celebrates his 80th birthday in January 2017 and this CD is Lavinia Meijer’s heartfelt and personal tribute to him.

‘The Glass Effect’ not only features works by Philip Glass but also showcases works by cutting-edge composers of a younger generation such as Ólafur Arnalds, Bryce Dessner, Nils Frahm, Ellis Ludwig-Leone and Nico Muhly.

Of CD1, dedicated exclusively to the Glass Etudes, Lavinia Meijer writes: “The Etudes explore a variety of tempi, textures, playing techniques and harmonies that give a wonderful overview of Glass’ changing musical language across a time span of over 20 years from 1991-2012″.  

For CD2, she turned her attention to a younger generation of musicians influenced by the stunning effect of Glass’s craft.  Her idea was to choose a variety of different composers, each of whom would contribute their own individual sound and feel for melody and to show how young composers could reinterpret Glass’s artistry in new and innovative ways. This lead, for example, to a collaboration with sound designer, Arthur Antoine on ‘Lift Off‘, based on music Glass wrote in 1982 for the film ‘Koyaanisqatsi‘; a project with New York composer, Ellis Ludwig-Leone, who created a special electronic piece for the album and also working with Bryce Dessner of ‘The National’, who arranged  Suite 1/2/3. 

Born in South Korea and adopted at the age of two into a Dutch family, Lavinia Meijer started to play the harp at the age of nine.  She regularly performs solo recitals at leading concert halls around the world and as well as performing classic repertoire for the harp, Ms Meijer also experiments with electronic music, theatrical music, contemporary music, modern classics and jazz and she is constantly seeking out new sound worlds for the harp and new compositions for her chosen instrument. 

In the coming period Lavinia will perform concerts including her new repertoire of ‘The Glass Effect’ at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam among various other venues in the Netherlands. She will further play at the Bozar (Brussels), the Tibet House (New York, NY) and Sendesaal (Bremen).