Coastal Senior College (CSC), serving midcoastal Maine from Wiscasset to Camden, opens registration on Aug. 12 for its 16 fall courses, which begin the week of Sept. 15.

Current and new members of the College are offered ten “live classroom” courses in locations throughout both Lincoln and Knox counties. An additional six courses are offered on “Zoom,” available to any member of the statewide Maine Senior College Network.  There are no “hybrid” courses on offer combining “live” and “Zoom” students. 

Spearheading the Fall semester is a four-session course titled From Baltimore to Lakimpong: The Life and Music of Philip Glass. This course is co-sponsored with Belfast Senior College. Instructor Bob Rackmales, graduate of Johns Hopkins and Indiana universities will be joined by guest lecturers, popular midcoast pianist Sean Fleming and violinist Luke Fatora of Oberlin University and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  

Philip Glass, still active at the age of 88, was once considered a composer whose “minimalist” works were an acquired taste that many chose not to acquire. As his operas and film scores became popular, his fame grew to the point that he has been referred to as “one of the foremost creative geniuses of the last fifty years.” 

This course will track his development as a man and artist from his childhood in Baltimore to his interactions around the globe with teachers and collaborators such as Ravi Shankar, Nadia Boulanger, Martin Scorsese, Richard Serra, and Paul Simon. Excerpts from key chamber works, operas such as Satyagraha, and films such as The Thin Blue Line will be examined. 

Much of the course will be based on Glass’s memoir Words Without Music and the excellent documentary “Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts” by Scott Hicks.  

The “live” course is scheduled for 9:30–11:30 a.m. at the new Bay Chamber Concerts Hammer Hall in Camden on Mondays, Sept. 22 and 29 and Oct. 6, plus Tuesday, Sept. 30.  

Information about Coastal Senior College and registration for the fall courses may be found at coastalseniorcollege.org.