In July 2005, filmmaker Scott Hicks started shooting a documentary about the composer Philip Glass to celebrate his 70th birthday in 2007. Over the next 18 months, Scott followed Philip across three continents – from his annual ride on the Coney Island “Cyclone” to the world premiere of his new opera in Germany and in performance with a didgeridoo virtuoso in Australia.

Allowed unprecedented access to Glass’ working process, family, spiritual teachers and long time collaborators, Hicks worked with a skeleton crew and shot the lion’s share of the film himself, giving us a singular revelation into the life of this surprising and complex man. THIRTEEN’s American Masters: GLASS: a portrait of Philip in twelve parts premieres nationally, Wednesday, April 8, 2009 at 9 p.m. (ET) on PBS (check local listings). This documentary is a mosaic film portrait of one of the greatest – and at times controversial – artists of this era. The film coincides with the DVD release from KOCH LORBER Films.

“The music of Philip Glass is instantly recognizable. Its layered, repetitive notes are transcendent to some and unbearable for others. Yet, no one can dispute the influence Glass has over contemporary music,” says Susan Lacy, creator and executive producer of American Masters, a six-time winner of the Emmy Award® for Outstanding Primetime Non-Fiction Series. “This film offers a fascinating personal study of the dedicated artist doing what he does best – from making music to making pizza.”

Over the year and a half of shooting, GLASS follows the innovative composer with a casual, immediate honesty. The film features performance footage of Glass’ seminal collaboration with Robert Wilson, Einstein on the Beach, interviews with former partners JoAnne Akalaitis and Holly Critchlow, artist Chuck Close, musician Nico Muhly and directors Woody Allen, Errol Morris, Godfrey Reggio and Martin Scorsese.

Born in 1937, Glass grew up in Baltimore and was educated at the University of Chicago and The Juilliard School. After a period in Europe where he studied with the legendary Nadia Boulanger and the sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, he returned to New York in 1967 to form the Philip Glass Ensemble. The radical musical group performed at various art happenings in the downtown gallery scene, where Glass cultivated his signature sound. His unique soundscape of reiterative structures was initially vilified but has since achieved international acclaim. Today, his versatile, prolific body of work spans multiple genres including opera, symphony, experimental theater and dance, film score – for which he has received three Oscar nominations – and even rock. His collaborators have ranged from Allen Ginsberg and Twyla Tharp to David Bowie and Paul Simon to Yo-Yo Ma and Doris Lessing.

Tony Bennett was trained from the start in the bel canto style of singing. It served him well. Bennett has gone on to earn 15 Grammys and to sell more than 50 million records in a career that’s celebrated in AMERICAN MASTERS Tony Bennett: The Music Never Ends. Here is a timeline of major events in the entertainer’s life:

1926

The son of a grocer and an Italian-born immigrant, Tony Bennett is born Anthony Dominick Benedetto on August 3.

1936

Already attracting notice as a singer, Bennett performs beside Mayor Fiorello La Guardia at the opening of the Triborough Bridge.

1944-46

Serves in combat in Europe during World War II and, upon his return stateside, attends the American Theater Wing on the GI Bill.

1949

Pearl Bailey asks Bennett to join her revue at New York’s Village Inn and he’s discovered by Bob Hope, who attends one of the performances. Hope offers Bennett a spot in his shows at the famed Paramount Theatre. Backstage, before Bennett goes on, Hope christens him “Tony Bennett,” changing it from Bennett’s stage name at the time, “Joe Bari.”

1950

Successfully auditions for Columbia Records’ producer Mitch Miller, singing “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” and signs with the label.

1951

Scores his first hit, “Because of You,” which peaks at No. 1 and remains on the charts for 32 weeks. His next single, Hank Williams’ “Cold, Cold Heart,” becomes the first notable cover of a country tune. Both feature the Percy Faith Orchestra, which provides the lush backdrop of 24 Top 40 tunes he charts before 1964.

1951-1953

Scores four hits in the Top Five of the charts.

1956

Performs for the first of nine U.S. presidents, Dwight Eisenhower.

1957

The experimental album The Beat of My Heart highlights jazz percussionists as its only instrumentation and serves as a precursor to later distinguished works.

1958

“Firefly,” by new songwriting team of Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh, becomes Bennett’s last hit of the ’50s.

Basie Swings, Bennett Sings serves as a blueprint for his later forays into jazz singing.

1962

Records his first Grammy Award winner – and his subsequent trademark tune – “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.” Released as a single by Columbia, it remains on national charts for nine months. When the song’s album is released, it goes gold. The song was written by then-unknown songwriters George Cory and Douglass Cross.

Sells out New York’s Carnegie Hall, becoming the first male pop solo performer at the famed venue. As a follow-up, Columbia releases the live album, Tony Bennett at Carnegie Hall.

Performs for the Queen of England in the first of six Royal Command Performances.

1963

I Wanna Be Around hits the top of the charts. The album’s title track also hits, as does the album’s next single, “The Good Life.”

1964-66

Scores a string of aesthetic and popular triumphs with his albums consistently hitting the top of charts, including 1964’s When Lights Are Low, his tribute to the King Cole Trio and 1966’s The Movie Song Album.

Enjoys a series of charting singles, such as the Top 40 hits “Who Can I Turn to (When Nobody Needs Me)” from the 1964 Broadway musical The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crowd and “If I Ruled the World” from the 1965 Broadway musical Pickwick.

1965

Joins friend and colleague Harry Belafonte to march with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama.

1968

Snowfall: The Tony Bennett Christmas Album – which stands as his only solo yuletide release for nearly 35 years – gives audiences such classics for the holidays as “Winter Wonderland,” “White Christmas” and “My Favorite Things.” Robert Farnon arranges the music and conducts the orchestra for the project.

1972-77

Changes labels from Columbia to MGM Records and, by the mid-1970s, decides to form his own record company, Improv. Makes several albums for Improv, including two critically-acclaimed duet records with jazz pianist Bill Evans in 1975 and 1977.

1979

Son Danny, who becomes his manager, begins forging the next stage of his pop icon father’s career, which yields a new era that brings an overwhelming affinity from the next generation of audiences.

1986

Touring regularly in concert halls around the world, Bennett finds a growing appreciation for traditional pop music as performers like Natalie Cole and Linda Ronstadt record albums of standards. In this new environment, Bennett re-signs with Columbia records and releases The Art of Excellence, his first chart album in 14 years.

1990

The first celebrity guest artist to “appear” as himself in the animated hit The Simpsons – in the episode entitled Dancin’ Homer- Bennett starts to break ground with a younger set of fans.

Having consistently garnered excellent reviews in venues such as the Hollywood Bowl and Radio City, Bennett celebrates 40 years in the business with a concert at London’s Prince Edward Theatre.

Columbia/Legacy’s Forty Years: The Artistry of Tony Bennett is released as a four-CD set.

1991

Delivers a show-stopping performance of “When Do the Bells Ring for Me” from his Astoria album at the Grammy Awards.

1992

His album Perfectly Frank – a sampling of Bennett’s take on an array of Frank Sinatra songs – starts the Bennett revival in earnest and earns him a Grammy Award. Appropriately enough, Sinatra himself has called Bennett his favorite singer.

1993

Bennett’s tribute to Fred Astaire, Steppin’ Out, goes gold, and he wins another Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. The video is included in MTV’s popular program Buzz Bin and he is nominated for an MTV Video Music Award.

Presenting with the Red Hot Chili Peppers – alongside Anthony Kiedis and Flea – at the MTV Music Video Awards cements Bennett’s reputation as the epitome of cool. The Red Hot Chili Peppers are just one of the alternative rockers who will cite Bennett’s influence on their music.

1994

Further bringing Bennett to the forefront of the next generation’s hip idea of music, his MTV Unplugged – featuring guest stars Elvis Costello (”They Can’t Take That Away from Me”) and k.d. lang (”Moonglow”) – goes platinum and wins the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

1995

Earns another Grammy Award for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance for Here’s to the Ladies, which includes his version of songs by several female singers, such as Barbra Streisand’s “People” and Judy Garland’s “Over the Rainbow.”

1996

Rizzoli International Publications publishes What My Heart Has Seen, a collection of Bennett’s paintings that features portraits he has created of some of his idols, including Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, and landscapes of his world travels.

On Valentine’s Day, A&E airs Live by Request: Tony Bennett and garners Bennett an Emmy and Cable Ace Award. The program’s concept, developed by Bennett himself, is so popular that the network creates a continuing series of Live by Request music specials.

1997

Earns a Grammy Award for Bennett on Holiday: A Tribute to Billie Holiday.

1998

His best-selling autobiography, The Good Life, hits bookstores.

Releases a children’s album, The Playground.

1999

Wins another Grammy for his tribute to friend and colleague, Duke Ellington, Bennett Sings Ellington: Hot and Cool.

Makes a cameo appearance in the hit film Analyze This, starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal.

2001

Releases on Columbia Records Playin’ With My Friends: Bennett Sings the Blues, an album of duets with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Billy Joel and Stevie Wonder, featuring such tunes as “Stormy Weather” with Natalie Cole and “Let the Good Times Roll” with B.B. King.

Receives a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Celebrates his 75th birthday with a gala event at Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The city of New York opens the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts high school in Queens, which Bennett conceived of and championed.

2002

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honors Bennett with the Pied Piper Lifetime Achievement Award.

Receives a Grammy Award for Playin’ With My Friends.

With son Dae, open Bennett Studios in Englewood, N.J. as a full-service, state of the art production and recording facility.

With k.d. lang, records a duets album at Bennett Studios, A Wonderful World, which is produced by T-Bone Burnett.

PBS airs the performance special, Tony Bennett’s Wonderful World: Live in San Francisco.

2003

Makes cameo appearance in the film, Bruce Almighty, starring Jim Carrey and Jennifer Aniston.

Along with k.d. lang, wins a Grammy for A Wonderful World.

2004

Returns to Bennett Studios to record The Art of Romance, which features the track, “All for You,” with lyrics penned by Bennett himself.

2005

Named Kennedy Center honoree.

Original oil painting, Central Park, is accepted into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.

2006

Named 2006 NEA Jazz Master.

Wins Grammy Award for The Art of Romance.

In celebration of his 80th birthday, Tony Bennett Duets: An American Classic is released and becomes the highest charting and best selling CD of his career, reaching platinum status in less than three months.

NBC airs Tony Bennett: An American Classic, a groundbreaking musical variety special directed by Oscar winner Rob Marshall.

Receives the Billboard Century Award.

2007

Tony Bennett Duets: An American Classic wins three Grammy Awards, including shared vocal duet award for Bennett and Stevie Wonder for their rendition of “For Once in My Life.”

Honored by the United Nations with their 2007 Humanitarian Award.

“The Wizard of Waukesha” took up his first instrument, a harmonica, at age eight. By 13, he was performing. His incredible trajectory is thoroughly explored in AMERICAN MASTERS Les Paul: Chasing Sound. Here are some highlights from his life and career.

1915
Lester William Polfuss is born June 9 in Waukesha, Wisconsin, to parents George and Evelyn Polfuss.

1923-6
Punches new holes into his mother’s player piano rolls, achieving a crude multi-track effect; learns harmonica from an itinerant ditch-digger; builds a crystal radio set and begins weekend studies of sound electronics with WTMJ radio engineer.

1927-8
Receives first guitar – a Sears, Roebuck Troubadour; performs in Waukesha as “Red Hot Red;” meets idols Gene Autry and Pie Plant Pete touring with Chicago’s WLS Barn Dance shows; experiments with amplification and electrified guitar at Beekman’s Bar-B-Q; builds first disc-cutting lathe with Cadillac flywheel and dental belts; attempts first “solid-body” guitar, using a railroad track strung with wire and a telephone amplifier as the pickup.

1929
Joins Rube Tronson and his Texas Cowboys for a summer gig in Escanaba, Michigan, and befriends his mentor and guitar tutor, “Sunny Joe” Wolverton.

1932
Drops out of high school and teams up with Wolverton as “Sunny Joe” and “Rhubarb Red,” performing for “hillbilly” radio stations in Springfield and St. Louis, Missouri.

1933
Rhubarb Red and Sunny Joe move on to Chicago to perform at the World’s Fair and then with WBBM, until Paul decides to pursue jazz – living a dual identity as Rhubarb Red on daytime radio and as Les Paul at night, jamming with the jazz greats.

1934-6
Forms the Les Paul Trio with Ernie Newton and Jimmie Atkins; makes Decca blues recordings with Georgia White; and begins the first of many solid-body guitar experiments, paying the Larson Brothers $15 to build a single cutaway half-inch maple top, with no f-holes and two pickups.

1937
Joins Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians on NBC radio, bringing the sound of the electric guitar to millions of listeners coast to coast.

1939
Performs in a White House concert for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

1941
Working weekends at the Epiphone factory in New York City, builds “The Log” by attaching a standard Epiphone neck, strings and wings to a 4×4 board with a pickup. When M. H. Berlin, president of Gibson Guitar’s parent company, takes little interest in this “solid-body,” Paul braces an Epiphone hollow body with a 3/8-inch steel bar, winds his own super-hot pickups and, for a decade or more, uses “The Klunker” as his primary electrified guitar for performing and recording.

1942
Moves to Los Angeles with the dream of teaming up with Bing Crosby and replacing the late Eddie Lang, Paul’s guitar idol.

1944
Drafted into Armed Forces Radio Service, where he creates V-Disc recordings and AFRS radio shows. Tangles with Nat Cole during the first “Jazz at the Philharmonic” concert in Los Angeles, one of history’s most famous jams.

1945
Provides brilliant accompaniment for Bing Crosby’s post-war record hit “It’s Been a Long, Long Time.” Impressed with Paul’s technical wizardry, Crosby urges him to build a studio. Paul soundproofs his garage in Hollywood, where he records the Andrews Sisters, Art Tatum, Jo Stafford, Andy Williams, Kay Starr, Pee Wee Hunt, Andre Previn, Tex Williams, and W.C. Fields.

1945
Gene Autry introduces Colleen Summers (Mary Ford) to Paul, who returns to his “Rhubarb Red” persona to perform “hillbilly” radio shows with Ford on NBC.

1946
Paul’s mother complains that every guitar player on the radio sounds just like him. Paul leaves tour with the Andrews Sisters and returns to his garage studio in Hollywood for two years of research into echo, overdubbing, phasing, and other recording effects.

1948
Emerges from studio with 22 “New Sound” recordings of multiple overdubbed guitars; Capitol Records releases Paul’s first solo hit single – “Lover” backed by “Brazil.” Paul and Ford inaugurate their musical act in Waukesha; en route back to California, their convertible careens off Route 66 during a winter storm. Paul’s right arm is badly damaged and doctors recommend amputation, but Paul persuades them to re-set arm in a crook so that he can continue to play.

1949
Bing Crosby commissions Ampex Corporation to produce the first tape recorder, based on the wartime German prototype. Bing gives first Ampex model to Paul, who promptly orders an additional recording head and invents the “sound-on-sound” tape machine. Paul marries Mary Ford and hosts a radio show, “The Les Paul Show,” which airs for 23 weeks.

1950
Gibson Guitar Corp. begins work on a solid-body electric guitar and seeks endorsement of the most prominent guitarist of the day.

1951
“How High the Moon” and “Walkin’ & Whistlin’ Blues” are chart-busters; Paul and Ford play the London Palladium.

1951-6:
Paul and Ford create a string of 14 consecutive pop hits, including “Mocking Bird Hill,” “Tennessee Waltz,” “Bye, Bye, Blues,” “Tiger Rag,” “Waiting for the Sunrise,” and “I’m Sitting on Top of the World.”

1952
Moves to Mahwah, New Jersey, to produce “Les Paul & Mary Ford At Home,” a series of 5-minute television shows (170 episodes) sponsored by Listerine. Release of the Gibson “Gold Top,” the first commercial “Les Paul model” solid-body electric guitar.

1953
Conceives of 8-track tape recorder and works with Ampex to refine and manufacture the equipment. Release of Paul and Ford’s biggest hit, “Vaya Con Dios.”

1955
As guest speaker at Audio Engineers Society convention, Paul proposes the “use of light for recording sound.”

1956
Invents the “Les Paulverizer,” a remote-control device he attaches below the tailpiece of his guitar to manipulate the taped accompaniment he and Ford used during their White House concert for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

1957
Ampex delivers first operational 8-track recorder to Paul. Capitol Records contract ends as rock and roll pushes Paul and Ford off the charts. They sign with Mitch Miller at Columbia Records.

1963
Paul and Ford separate.

1964
Retires from performing, but not from tinkering with pickup designs and other electronics.

1964
Divorced from Mary Ford.

1975
Carnegie Hall concert with Bucky Pizzarelli, George Benson and Laurindo Almeida.

1976
Emerges from retirement to record “Chester & Lester” with Chet Atkins, and a 1978 follow-up, “Guitar Monsters.” The former receives a 1977 Grammy for “Best Country Instrumental Performance.”

1977
Mary Ford dies in Los Angeles after lapsing into diabetic coma.

1979
Receives Recording Academy’s Grammy Hall of Fame Award for “How High the Moon.”

1980
Quintuple by-pass heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.

1983
Receives prestigious Trustees Award from the Recording Academy.

1984
Launches a regular Monday night gig with his trio in New York City, first at Fat Tuesdays and then at the Iridium Jazz Club.

1985
Induction into Hollywood Guitar Center’s “Rock Walk of Fame.”

1988
Lauded in a Cinemax tribute, Les Paul: He Changed the Music, with B.B. King, Eddie Van Halen and others.

1988
Induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as “Architect of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

1996
Induction into New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame; presented The John Smithson Bicentennial Medal by the Smithsonian Institution.

1997
Featured in a celebrated Coors “Original” beer commercial: Young rocker: “What’s your name?” Les Paul: “It’s on your guitar.”

2001
Awarded a Technical Grammy by the Recording Academy.

2005
Celebrates his 90th birthday with a tribute concert at Carnegie Hall; inducted into National Inventors Hall of Fame; receives Sammy Cahn Lifetime Achievement Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

2006
Two 2005 Grammy awards – Best Pop Instrumental Performance (”Caravan”) and Best Rock Instrumental Performance (”69 Freedom Special”) – for Les Paul & Friends (Capitol), his first new album in almost 30 years. Among Paul’s musical partners: Keith Richards, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Buddy Guy.