Philip Glass: ‘My problem is people don’t believe I write symphonies’

About to turn 80, the composer talks about his slow, taxi-driving road to success, and why he is anything but a minimalist…The American composer Philip Glass, 80 this month, has been one of the dominant, boundary-crossing influences of the past half century. He first won a worldwide following in the 1970s with Koyaanisqatsi, Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, and has collaborated with Allen Ginsberg, Robert Wilson, Doris Lessing, Martin Scorsese, Ravi Shankar, David Bowie, Paul Simon a