Remembering Moondog, Influence on Steve Reich and Philip Glass

In Sunday's New York Times, writer John Strausbaugh remembers Moondog, the avant-garde street poet/performer/composer who influenced the likes of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. This "Viking of Sixth Avenue," as he was known, was a longtime fixture on the corner of Manhattan's Sixth Avenue and 54th Street through the early '70s. And though he passed away in 1999 at the age of 83, Moondog, a new book by Robert Scotto makes clear the artist's lasting influence. In the book's preface, Philip Glass writes that he and Reich took Moondog's work "very seriously and understood and appreciated it much more than what we were exposed to at Julliard.”

A festival featuring Moondog's work (alongside that of Beethoven and Bach, among others) will take place this weekend at the Advent Lutheran Church on Manhattan's Upper West Side.