Philip Glass on Sesame Street? (1979)

The blog Brain Pickings isn't a television site per se, but as a culture blog it strays into television from time to time, and we've linked to it over at Our Word. So I couldn't pass up this article on Philip Glass' collaboration with Seseame Street in 1979.

Philip Glass is one of the most contemporary of contemporary composers. I'm not the fan of his that Maria is (nor am I a fan of Sesame Street*, but that's for another day), but I find some of his work quite extraordinary, particularly his opera Satyagraha, which I'm really looking forward to seeing on a Met Opera broadcast next season. (He's also a very engaging personality when interviewed, which helps.)  He's done music for movies, and probably even for television commericals, but I didn't know he'd worked with Seseame Street before. Perhaps it was all just part of a plot to turn our children into minimalists, or maybe it was all a hypnotic spell with some secret message contained (Bauhaus is good!), but I think it's still OK to have fun with it. Here's the last of the four pieces - it is striking, isn't it?

*Not including the Muppets.  Particularly Ernie and Bert. And Cookie Monster. I'm a big fan of them.