Philip Glass - Personal Life

Personal Life

Glass describes himself as "a Jewish-Taoist-Hindu-Toltec-Buddhist", and he is a supporter of Tibetan independence. In 1987 he co-founded the Tibet House with Columbia University professor Robert Thurman and the actor Richard Gere. Glass is a vegetarian.

Glass has four children and one granddaughter. Juliet (b. 1968) and Zachary (b. 1971) are his children from his first marriage, to theater director JoAnne Akalaitis (married 1965, divorced 1980). Granddaughter Zuri (b.1989) is Zachary's daughter. His second marriage to Luba Burtyk was dissolved. His third wife, the artist Candy Jernigan, died of liver cancer in 1991, aged 39. Marlowe and Cameron are Glass's sons with his fourth wife, Holly Critchlow (from whom Glass is divorced). Glass lives in New York and in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He was romantically involved with cellist Wendy Sutter from 2008-2010.

Glass is the first cousin once removed of Ira Glass, host of the nationally syndicated radio show This American Life. Ira interviewed Glass onstage at Chicago's Field Museum; this interview was broadcast on NPR's Fresh Air. Ira interviewed Glass a second time at a fundraiser for St. Ann's Warehouse; this interview was given away to public radio listeners as a pledge drive thank you gift in 2010. Ira and Glass recorded a version of the composition Glass wrote to accompany his friend Allen Ginsberg's poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra." Glass's cousin is Ira Glass's father.

According to an interview, Franz Schubert is Glass's favorite composer, with whom he shares a birthday.

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