Fans of visually arresting, art-house movies about the power of nature screened to live music, this one is for you. As part of a celebration of his 75th birthday, the New York Philharmonic will be performing Phillip Glass's score to Godfrey Reggio's 1982 cult environmental flick Koyaanisqatsi not once but twice in Avery Fisher Hall, November 2 and 3rd. Magic mushrooms not included. This will be the first performance of a Glass piece by the Philharmonic.
And Koyaanisqatsi won't be even close to the end of the Glass celebrations in town this fall. Other events coming up include a reprise of Satyagraha at the Metropolitan Opera and the New York premiere of his Symphony No. 9 at Carnegie Hall on Glass’s actual 75th birthday (January 31). Then, come 2012, there will be a whole host of events curated by the composer, but we'll get to those when we get there.
Meanwhile, if you don't know what it is and are trying to figure out why you'd want to spend $35-$135 for seats to see an orchestra accompany a movie, the best way to grasp the appeal is probably just to watch the movie yourself. And look, the entire thing is on YouTube for you (we'd also link to The Simpsons excellent spoof Koyaanis-Scratchy: Death out of Balance but it seems to be offline):
