The International Institute in Madrid organises a lecture on “Einstein on the Beach” by Philip Glass, given by Gabriel Menéndez.

This evening, from 19:00 to 21:00, the second of the lectures on American musical minimalism organised by the International Institute of Madrid (Miguel Ángel St. 8) on the occasion of the premiere of the opera Nixon in China, by the composer John Adams, at the Teatro Real in Madrid on 17 April, will take place at the cultural centre founded in Madrid in 1903. The lecture series is entitled Reiteration of Diversity: Minimal Music and American Opera of the 20th Century and is being given by Gabriel Menéndez Torrellas, Doctor in Aesthetics and Philosophy and Musicologist and Art Historian at the Albert-Ludwig-University of Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), where he was professor at the Faculty of Musicology. This second lecture focuses on Einstein on the Beach, the opera by Philip Glass, with stage direction by Bob Wilson, considered to be the fundamental work of the minimalist musical movement, despite the fact that, as the composer has always maintained, by then he had completely abandoned the minimalist aesthetic of his initial works, between 1966 and 1974, it being more correct to refer to his compositions as works “based on repeated structures”. Menéndez Torrellas, who is currently Professor of Opera History and Director of the Seminar of Opera and Musicology at the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid, will give a third and final lecture on 11 April, which will focus precisely on Nixon in China, the opera by John Adams which has served as an excuse for the celebration of this informative cycle, which will be completed on 27 May with a concert of minimalist music entitled Liquid Soundscapes, by the Percussion Group Boost, which this year celebrates the tenth anniversary of its formation.