Glass: Songs - CD

On Philip Glass - Songs, Baritone Martin Achrainer and pianist Maki Namekawa give the world premiere recording of Glass's 1997 song-cycle Songs of Milarepa, about the spiritual journey of Milarepa, a Tibetan poet who lived 900 to 1,000 years ago. Martin Achrainer has quickly become a Glass specialist of a kind, having sung in multiple Glass operas including his breakthrough performance as Kepler, the title role of Glass's 2009 grand opera. Namekawa is one of the preeminent artists working with Philip Glass today. Chose by Glass in 2014 to be the first pianist to record his Complete Piano Etudes. The album concludes with Three Songs for Baritone and Piano which is a collection of songs drawn from two sources, Glass's 1989 song opera Hydrogen Jukebox which was created with Allen Ginsberg, and two songs from Monsters of Grace, a multimedia opera created with director Robert Wilson.