In a dialogue with Emory Vice President and Secretary Rosemary Magee, composer Philip Glass heralded norm-breaking scientists as influential sources for his operas, and elaborated on the influence of other artists and the sociopolitical movements of his time.

The conversation followed on the heels of the sold-out Atlanta premiere of his opera, Akhnaten, which was held in the Schwartz Center on Friday and Sunday.

In addition to his 1976 Einstein on the Beach and 2002 Galileo Galilei operas, he is currently working on an opera about mathematician Johannes Kepler that is intended to premiere in Linz, Austria, in September.

“It goes back to my teenage years when I was very interested in scientists,” he said. “I encountered my subject matter before I knew what I was going to do with it or how.”

Glass said that he loved composing pieces about scientists because, more than anything, they were dreamers who dared to break the norms.

“Kepler was someone whose head was in the clouds and feet in the mud,” he said. “These kinds of dreamers have always enticed me.”

Glass said Akhnaten was an interesting composition because the processes involved in archaeology are very similar to the way the opera is set up. The opera is actually intended to seem very fragmented, Glass said, because the idea behind archaeology is to work with limited pieces of evidence and concocting a story out of them.

“I wanted the experience to feel like going to the museum and seeing pieces of exhibits and then having to tell yourself a story based on these assumptions,” he said. Audience participation is absolutely crucial to any kind of art, but especially so for opera, he added.

In addition to discussing the creation of this historical drama about the Egyptian pharaoh who overthrew the old religious order and replaced it with a monotheistic one, Glass said that various creative collaborations with artists in his lifetime – from Robert Wilson and Lucinda Childs to Twyla Tharp and Godfrey Reggio — have fed his own creativity.

Magee asked him to comment on how the process of collaboration differed with different people or mediums — whether Glass was working with a visual artist like Lucinda Childs or a choreographer like Sol Lewitt.

“Often it is not the medium so much as the personalities of the collaborators that affect my work,” Glass said.

Glass also described growing up in Baltimore in the 50s, which at that time was considered by its inhabitants a Southern city, and elaborated on how that experience has influenced his work.

“I grew up in the midst of the civil rights and the anti-war movements,” he said. “I’ve made a series of operas based on movies that I saw during that time. Everything I’d encountered then has provided me with lifelong material.”

Glass said that when he hears one of his pieces after a long period of time, he worries that he “could have done it better.”

Giving the example of how Akhnaten was composed in the early 80s, Glass said that in the past 25 years he had seen it performed only about three times.

“I don’t deny that Akhnaten was a beautifully accomplished piece. But language changes for everybody,” he said.

Glass went on to note that he could no longer remember the specifics of the opera — for instance, whether a certain note is an E or an E-flat.

“I believe that the art of writing almost bars us from remembering,” he said. “The process of writing requires an extraordinary amount of attention. When you need that extra bit of attention, you steal it from your memory.”

Glass went on to talk about the possibility of recounting stories through art.

“Opera is a place where social issues can come into play,” he said. “In my generation, we talked about social change a lot. I’m sure your generation does too, but there seems to have been more marching on the streets during my time.”

He acknowledged the impact that social shifts like the recession would have on the careers of future artists. Artists of his own time never had much money and were compelled to reinvent themselves in the entertainment world, he said.

Glass has been nominated for an Oscar on three occasions, for composing the musical scores for “Kundun,” “The Hours” and “Notes on a Scandal.”

Glass also commented on the process behind composing itself.

“Composers like to say that we have a voice,” he said. “But it becomes less interesting the more we say it.”

"The real issue is not finding your voice but getting rid of it,” he continued. “The very thing that you thought would make your career ends up hampering it.”

Glass disclosed that his sure-fire strategy for innovation was to find someone whose work he didn’t understand and work with that person.

“I bring my background, my training, my inclinations to the table, but the music we create ultimately changes us,” he said, describing his collaborations with sitarist Ravi Shankar and an African drummer who did not use notations for his music.

“If you look at my work, I’ve rarely repeated working with the same people,” he said. “It’s only when you don’t know what to do that you can do anything. If you know what to do, what’s the purpose of doing it?”

He ended the conversation with a seven-minute piano accompaniment, “Wichita Sutra Vortex,” to the 1988 Allen Ginsburg poem, “Howl.” The composition, a commentary on the Vietnam War, was originally created for a fundraising event that later became the basis of an opera. His performance drew much applause from the audience.

— Contact Samyukta Mullangi.