Orange Mountain Music is pleased to announce the release of Philip Glass’s Symphony no.12 “Lodger” from lyrics by David Bowie and Brian Eno – performed by Filharmonie Brno and conductor Dennis Russell Davies with soloists Angélique Kidjo and organist Christian Schmitt.

Symphony no.12 was premiered in January 2019 by soloists Angélique Kidjo and organist James McVinnie with John Adams conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Lodger Symphony represents the conclusion of a thirty-year artistic collaboration for Philip Glass using elements of music and texts by Bowie and Eno.

Philip Glass began his path as a composer of symphonies in 1992 at age of 55 with “Low Symphony” based on music by Bowie and Eno. Bowie and Eno themselves had been influenced by Glass’s music from the early 1970s in their “Berlin Trilogy” of albums from the late 1970s which Glass referred to as part of the “new classics” of our time and began what would ultimately become a trilogy of symphonies.

Low Symphony (Symphony no.1) was followed in 1995 by Heroes Symphony (Symphony no.4) based solely on the music of Bowie and Eno. Both large scale instrumental symphonies, Low Symphony was cast in three large movements contrasted by Heroes Symphony was a “dance-symphony” cast in six shorter movements and choreographed by Twyla Tharp.

Over two decades later, after Bowie’s death in 2016, Glass returned to the idea of concluding the trilogy by approaching the album Lodger as a symphonic subject. Captivated by Bowie’s various alter egos over the years, Glass looked at the lyrics to Lodger alone and conceived of them as being part of a fictional personality – which the composer stated would become embodied in the voice of Beninese singer Angélique Kidjo. Glass composed seven movements/songs using none of Bowie and Eno’s music but only the song lyrics, approaching them as poetry.

After a number of performances in Europe including London and Hamburg, Kidjo, Davies, and Glass revised the work to its current form which was performed at the 2021 Prague May Festival before being recorded in Brno, Czech Republic. This 40-minute CD includes a 24-page booklet including photos, the complete lyrics, and essays.