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Let's see how this text wraps: He grew up in Baltimore where his father ran a record store; his mother was a teacher and librarian. Glass began violin lessons at the age of six and then studied the flute with Briton Johnson at the Peabody Conservatory (1945–52); he also played the flute in the school band and orchestra. At 14, Glass passed an early-entrance examination into the University of Chicago, where he studied the piano with Marcus Raskin and spent many hours analysing scores. During the summer vacations he studied harmony with Louis Cheslock in Baltimore. Glass took the BA in 1956 and the following year entered the Juilliard School of Music (MS 1962), where his classmates included Peter Schickele and Steve Reich; his principal teachers were William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. In summer 1960 he worked at the Aspen Music School with Darius Milhaud and Charles Jones; from 1962 to 1964, he was composer-in-residence for the Pittsburgh public schools.
At this point, Glass had already begun to establish his germinal style which, he later acknowledged, owed much to Milhaud. Several early works were published but the composer has disavowed those written before 1965. He became increasingly dissatisfied with his music and, indeed, with the musical milieu of the time. Acknowledging his colleagues’ dedication to serialism, he nevertheless considered serial compositions to be music of the past masquerading as music of the present. In 1964 Glass moved to Europe, where he eventually settled in Paris to study harmony and counterpoint with Boulanger. From Boulanger he acquired a technical mastery of basic compositional skills that he felt he previously lacked. During his second year with Boulanger, Glass was engaged to transcribe a film score by the sitar player Ravi Shankar into Western notation for Parisian studio musicians.