For years, composer Philip Glass has hoped The Philip Glass Center could make its home on a ranch in Big Sur. The vision is for a place where artists, scientists and conservationists can collaborate. But earlier this year the US Forest Service rejected his application to lease the land. Still it’s a plan Glass and his team don’t plan to abandon.
Philip Glass Center General Manager Jim Woodard says Brazil Ranch, a 1200 acre property owned by the US Forest Service, is still their top choice as a home for the Glass Center for the Arts, Science and Environment.
“Either we re-submit (the application) or work with the Forest Service on buying this property,” says Woodward when talking about what’s next.
The plan is for a 35 acres of the property. It’s an area known as the administrative zone that is currently closed to the public. Other areas of the ranch are open for hiking.
On a tour, Woodward starts inside the main barn, which could serve as a meeting room, dance studio or rehearsal facility. “As flexible as possible, I think, would be key to developing the property,” says Woodard.
A hay barn offers another opportunity for performance or rehearsal space. The caretaker’s house could become a dining hall. Up the hill in an old horse riding arena, there’s a plan to put tent cabins for the guests who would be artists and scientists invited by Philip Glass.
The idea is to just retrofit existing buildings and add temporary structures that will facilitate appreciation of Big Sur’s beauty.
“You take two artists put them together. Then if they’re somewhere where they are awestruck, and then you have them having a meal together, going for a walk for sunset and then they sit down and start working on a piece of new music or a poem or a science project,” says Woodard. “What Philip loves to do is to put people together that would not normally have ever perhaps even met. An environmentalist and a ballerina, who knows what would happen? Those sorts of odd combinations.”
But right now this location off the table after the US Forest Service rejected the application citing limited resources to oversee a project of this size. The cash strapped agency is understaffed and overburdened fighting wild fires.
In fact, no one had time to do an interview for this story, and it took four years for it to respond to Philip Glass’s application. So the composer says he was disappointed, but not surprised by the rejection.
“You can say they relieved me of a big headache. It was a headache that I wanted, actually,” says Glass. So for the moment the Glass says the center will exist without a permanent home.
“We’ll have a virtual center. We’ll be in different places. It’s not going to really slow down what we’re doing. Financially, to be truthful, it makes it easier. If we can engage the Forest Services at a future time, if they think it through again, you know,” says Glass.
He will continue with the Days and Nights Festival which enters its fifth year next week. (KAZU is a media sponsor of the event.) Then in 2016, as part of the festival, he will roll out the collaborative meet ups and workshops he hoped to host at Brazil Ranch at other venues he can rent throughout the region.
“I have four workshops to do next year. I might be in four places. It’s not going to make any difference from that point of view. The intellectual, the ideological structure of the place is intact. We have a not for profit organization already approved in California. We’re settled. We’re set up there,” says Glass.
As for the future of Brazil Ranch, it’s at a standstill. There’s been talk of the US Forest Service selling off part of the property, including the area with the buildings that Glass wants to use, but any sell off would have to be approved by Congress because the land’s value is so high.