Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass Collaborate

Throw in Don DeLillo, and you've got the entire Sunday NY Times Arts & Leisure section
Leonard Cohen and Philip Glass Collaborate

Legendary singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen has teamed up with comparably legendary avant-garde composer Philip Glass for "The Book of Longing", a series of performances setting 22 of Cohen's poems from the 2005 book of the same name to new Glass compositions, the Canadian Press reports.

Beginning tonight, the pair will perform the 90 minute piece over three consecutive evenings at Toronto's Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre, as part of the city's Luminato arts festival. Though Cohen will not take the stage with Glass during the musical portion of the performances, recordings of his readings will accompany Glass' live instrumentation, and he will appear alongside Glass in a question-and-answer segment Saturday evening.

Canada.com also reports that an exhibition of Cohen's sketches, "Drawn to Words", is on display at the festival from June 4 to 10.

Thanks to reader Ryan Duff for the tip.

Posted by Paul Thompson on Fri, Jun 1, 2007 at 10:28am