Philip Glass - Songs & Poems (Amelia Hollander Ames)

Information

Composer: Philip Glass

• Songs & Poems (arranged for viola)

Amelia Hollander Ames, viola

Date: 2026

Label: Orange Mountain Music

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Violist Amelia Hollander Ames performs Philip Glass’s 2007 composition Songs & Poems, originally written for solo cello and sensitively arranged for viola by Christine Rutledge. The work evolved from Glass’s earlier piece Chaotic Harmony for voice and cello, effectively merging two musical lines into a single expressive voice intended to “sing” through the instrument. Renamed Songs & Poems, the piece took on distinctly Romantic associations and has since become one of Glass’s most frequently performed string works. In Ames’s interpretation on the viola, the composition acquires fresh tonal depth and expressive nuance, revealing new dimensions within Glass’s lyrical, meditative style.

Amelia Hollander Ames is a dynamic violist, educator, and advocate for new music. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the New England Conservatory, she studied with distinguished teachers including Martha Katz and Karen Ritscher. She is founder of Con Vivo Music, a Jersey City–based collective presenting free chamber concerts. Recent and upcoming projects include international residencies and performances across Mexico, Europe, and Japan, highlighted by the premiere of a concerto written for her by Judith Alejandra Gonzalez Benitez. Ames has performed widely with leading ensembles in the U.S. and Israel, collaborated with prominent contemporary composers, recorded for major labels, and maintains an active teaching career in Massachusetts and beyond.

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