Godfrey Reggio (Director/Producer)

With the "Qatsi" Trilogy, Godfrey Reggio invented his own film style - which puts the emphasis on bringing audiences images of extraordinary emotional impact and thought-provoking relevance. Part essay, part image-and-music extravaganza, the three films chronicle the rapid evolution and astonishing impact of the modern world over the last few decades.

Born in New Orleans in 1940 and raised in Louisiana, Reggio spent 14 years in a Roman Catholic religious order of men (the Christian Brothers)—living in community, dedicated to prayer, study, and teaching. Based in New Mexico during the 1960’s, Reggio taught school, lectured, and co-founded Young Citizens for Action, a community organization project of juvenile street gangs. Following this, Reggio co-founded La Clinica de la Gente, a Santa Fe community medical clinic, and La Gente, a community organizing project in the barrios of Santa Fe.

In 1972, Reggio co-founded the Institute for Regional Education in Santa Fe, a non-profit foundation focused on media development, the arts, community organization and research - which was the progenitor for The Qatsi Trilogy. In 1974 and 1975, with funding from the American Civil Liberties Union, Reggio co-organized a multi- media public interest campaign on the invasion of privacy and the use of technology to control behavior. He then began to develop the idea for a nonverbal film formed from a non-stop collage of images from real life.

Thus started Reggio's seven-year odyssey to make "Koyaanisqatsi," which won acclaim around the world. He next traveled to 12 countries making his second film "Powaqqatsi" (1987) which shifted his focus from North America to the more remote corners of the planet.

Reggio followed the second "Qatsi" film with the short film "Anima Mundi," which was commissioned by Bulgari, the Italian jewelry company, for the World Wide Fund for Nature which used the film for its Biological Diversity Program. Accompanied by the music of Philip Glass, the twenty-eight minute "Anima Mundi" is a montage of intimate images of over seventy animal species that celebrates the magnificence and variety of the world's fauna.

In 1993, Reggio was invited to develop a new school of exploration and production in the arts, technology, and mass media being founded by the Benetton Company. Called Fabrica - Future, Presente, it opened in May, 1995, in Treviso, Italy, just outside Venice. While serving as the initial director of the school through 1995, Reggio co-authored the 7 minute film "Evidence," which provides another point of view to observe the subtle but profound effects of modern living on children.

Reggio is a frequent lecturer on philosophy, technology and film. He resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Philip Glass (Music)

Philip Glass has collaborated with Godfrey Reggio on the entire "Qatsi" trilogy, melding hypnotic symphonic scores to Reggio's images.

Born in Baltimore on January 31st, 1937, Glass discovered music in his father's radio repair shop. In addition to servicing radios, Ben Glass carried a line of records and, when certain ones sold poorly, he would take them home and play them for his three children. These happened to be recordings of the great chamber works, and the future composer rapidly became familiar with Beethoven quartets, Schubert sonatas, Shostakovich symphonies and other music then considered "offbeat." It was not until he was in his upper teens did Glass begin to encounter more "standard" classics.

Glass began the violin at six and became serious about music when he took up the flute at eight. But by the time he was 15, he had become frustrated with the limited flute repertory as well as with musical life in post-war Baltimore. During his second year in high school, he applied for admission to the University of Chicago, was accepted and, with his parents' encouragement, moved to Chicago where he supported himself with part-time jobs waiting tables and loading airplanes at airports. He majored in mathematics and philosophy, and in off-hours practiced piano and concentrated on such composers as Ives and Webern.

At 19, Glass graduated from the University of Chicago and, determined to become a composer, moved to New York and the Juilliard School. By then he had abandoned the 12-tone techniques he had been using in Chicago and preferred American composers like Aaron Copland and William Schuman. By the time he was 23, Glass had studied with Vincent Persichetti, Darius Milhaud and William Bergsma. He had rejected serialism and preferred such maverick composers as Harry Partch, Ives, Moondog, Henry Cowell, and Virgil Thomson, but he still had not found his own voice. Still searching, he moved to Paris and had two years of intensive study under Nadia Boulanger.

In Paris, he was hired by a filmmaker to transcribe the Indian music of Ravi Shankar into notation readable by French musicians and, in the process, discovered the techniques of Indian music. Glass promptly renounced his previous music and, after researching music in North Africa, India and the Himalayas, returned to New York and began applying eastern techniques to his own work.

By 1974, he had composed a large collection of new music, much of it for use by the theater company Mabou Mines (Glass was one of the co-founders of that company), and most of it composed for his own performing group, the Philip Glass Ensemble. This period culminated in "Music in 12 Parts," a 4-hour summation of Glass' new music, and reached their apogee in 1976 with Philip Glass / Robert Wilson opera "Einstein on the Beach," the 4 1/2-hour epic now seen as a landmark in 20th century music-theater.

In addition to "Einstein," Glass has collaborated with Robert Wilson on several other projects including: "the CIVIL warS - Act V (Rome Section)" of the multi-composer epic was written for the 1984 Olympic Games; "White Raven," an opera commissioned by Portugal to celebrate its history of discovery and premiered at EXPO '98 in Lisbon; and "Monsters of Grace," a digital 3-D opera.

Glass's very first film score was for Godfrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi," which went on to garner extensive praise, receive live orchestral performances at special screenings and become one of his most popular recordings. His many subsequent critically acclaimed film scores include Peter Weir's "The Truman Show," for which Glass was awarded the Golden Globe for Best Score and Martin Scorsese's "Kundun," which garnered Best Score nominations for the Academy Awards, Golden Globes and Grammys. His other scores include Reggio's "Powaqqatsi," "Mishima," "The Thin Blue Line," "A Brief History of Time," "Candyman" and "Dracula." Glass most recently composed the score for the forthcoming "The Hours" and created a series of live performances of his scores entitled "Philip on Film," a touring show that includes renderings of his scores for "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi."

Glass's extensive work ranges from operas ("Satyagraha," "Akhnaten," "The Making of the Representative for Planet 8," "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Juniper Tree," "Hydrogen Jukebox") to symphonic works ("The Light," "Itaipu," "The Violin Concerto," "Low" Symphony) to string quartets (Nos. 2 - 5) recorded by the Kronos Quartet. He has created music for dance ("A Descent into the Maelstrom" for Molissa Fenley, "In the Upper Room" for Twyla Tharp") and such unclassifiable theater pieces as "The Photographer," "1000 Airplanes on the Roof" and The Mysteries And What's So Funny?." He also composed the dance/theatre work "Orphee," "La Belle et Bete" and "Les Enfants Terrible," a trilogy based on the work of Jean Cocteau.

Glass' most current composing projects include: "Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchestra" which premiered at Avery Fisher Hall in November 2000; "In the Penal Colony," a musical theater work based on the short story by Franz Kafka, commissioned by A Contemporary Theater, Seattle in 2000; "Voices for Didgeridoo, Organ and Narrator," commissioned by the City of Melbourne Australia; and "Concerto for Cello and Orchestra," commissioned for Julian Lloyd Webber's 50th Birthday premiering at the Beijing Festival in October 2001.

Yo-Yo Ma (Cello)
The many-faceted career of cellist Yo-Yo Ma - and his collaboration with Godfrey Reggio and Philip Glass on NAQOYQATSI -- are testament to his continual search for new ways to communicate with audiences, and to his constant desire for artistic growth and renewal. Whether performing a new concerto, revisiting a work from the cello repertoire or exploring musical forms outside the Western tradition, Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination.

Yo-Yo Ma gave his first public recital at age 5 and by the time he was 19 was being compared with such masters as Rostropovich and Casals. He went on to graduate from the Juilliard School and Harvard University. One of the most sought-after cellists of our time, he has appeared with eminent conductors and orchestras in all the music capitals of the world. He has also earned a distinguished international reputation as an ambassador for classical music, music education and their vital role in society and cross-cultural exchange.

Ma's discography of some 50 albums includes fourteen Grammy Award winners. It also demonstrates his wide-ranging interests. In addition to the standard concerto, chamber and solo repertoire, he has recorded many of the works he has commissioned or premiered. Among his most recent recordings is a collection entitled "Classic Yo-Yo Ma," which Sony Classical released internationally in the fall of 2001. In addition to three never-before-released tracks, the disc includes performances of works by Bach, Beethoven, Dvorjak, Gershwin, Paizzolla, Rachmaninoff and three of his favorite contemporary collaborators, Tan Dun, Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor. He also recently was featured on Sony Classical's "Heartland," an anthology of new American roots music that features favorite tracks from two of the cellist's recording, "Appalachia Waltz" and "Appalachian Journey."

Ma recently founded and serves as Artistic Director of The Silk Road Project, which is intended to foster cultural exchange by uniting artists from Asia, the Middle East and the West in creative collaborations that illuminate the diverse artists expressions found along that historical trade route. Ma is currently performing with the Silk Road Ensemble and appears on the new CD "Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet," on which he plays the "morin khuur," a Mongolian horsehead fiddle.

In 2000, Ma joined with composer Tan Dun to collaborate on the Oscar-winning original score for Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," and his solos were also heard in the film's Oscar-nominated end-title song "A Love Before Time." Ma previously collaborated with Tan Dun on the Sony Classical recording of the composer's "Symphony 1997 (Heaven Earth Mankind)," a large choral-orchestral work commemorating the return of Hong Kong to China.

Other recent releases include "Simply Baroque II," a collection of Bach transcriptions and Boccherini concertos and the sequel to the best-selling "Simply Baroque" on which he plays his own Stradivarius reconfigured as a Baroque instrument; the Grammy-winning "Appalachian Journey" featuring traditional and original music written by Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor and featuring such guests as singer/songwriter James Taylor and violinist Allison Krauss; and a disc of Dvorjak chamber music with the late Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo and Emanuel Ax, the sixth and last recording by this acclaimed quartet.

Yo-Yo Ma's most recent solo recording, "Solo," (1999), was his first to explore the musical folk traditions of the Silk Road regions. In 1988, Ma released "Inspired by Bach," a unique multimedia collaboration with artists from six different disciplines. In addition to the soundtrack recording, with Ma's new interpretation of the six solo cello suites of J.S. Bach, the release also includes six short films capturing the cellist's creative encounters with garden designer Julie Moir Messervy, choreographer Mark Morris, Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando, filmmaker Atom Egoyan, the 18th century architect Piranes and ice dancers Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill. The films have won numerous honors, including 2 Emmy Awards and 16 Canadian Genie nominations. That same year saw the release of Ma's performance of John Tavener's celebrated work for cello and orchestra, "The Protecting Veil," and the continued success of "Appalachia Waltz."

Two of Ma's recordings of the 1990s - "Hush" with vocalist Bobby McFerrin and the soundtrack to "Immortal Beloved" - have been certified gold records by the Recording Industry Association of America.

In 1997, Ma was named Artist of the Year in the Gramaphone Awards, which capped off a year that included many achievements, including the release of "Soul of the Tango," which won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album; a trio of new cello concertos by Richard Danielpour, Leon Kirchner and Chrisopher Rouse; Tan Dun's "Symphony 1997"; the string quintets of Schubert and Boccherini; the music of Andre Previn, recorded with the composer and soprano Sylvia McNair; and the soundtrack recording of "Liberty!," a PBS documentary about the American Revolution.

Yo-Yo Ma continually works to expand the cello repertoire through performances of lesser-known music of the 20th century and the commissioning of new concertos and recital pieces. He has premiered works by a diverse group of composers, among them Stephen Albert, Chen Qigang, Richard Danielpour, John Harbison, Leon Kirchner, Peter Lieberson, Christopher Rouse, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, John Williams and Elliot Carter. In many instances, he has not only had new pieces written for him, but has also played an active role in their composition.

Ma plays two instruments: a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.

Jon Kane (Editor/Visual Designer)

Jon Kane brings together all of his skills and interests - including in editing, shooting, design and music - in his feature film debut as an editor/visual designer in NAQOYQATSI.

Jon Kane began college as a pre-law student but two fortuitous events, happening in the same week, lead him to a career in film. One was seeing "Koyaanisqatsi" at the Alfred University Theater; the other was witnessing the seminal DJ Red Alert spin records at the Roxy in Manhattan.

His career as a club DJ began immediately. Video editing came next for the purpose of creating home made music videos for the club where he worked. After graduating his cut and scratch editing style lead him directly to MTV, which at that time was just beginning to invent its style. Soon after, in the late eighties, when big advertisers wanted their commercials to look like MTV, Kane was recruited into the advertising business. He has been directing commercials, as well as documentary films and music videos, ever since. He has created ads for virtually every major ad agency in America and his company opticnerve� is considered a forerunner in the business.

Steven Soderbergh (Executive Producer)
To date, Steven Soderbergh is the only director to have two films nominated for Best Picture and Best Director in the same year: "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich." His Academy Award for Best Director of "Traffic" marked the first time since the 1928-29 Awards that a director has successfully competed against himself. Including Soderbergh's nominations, "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich" each received five Oscar nominations and took home a total of five awards. Since then, Soderbergh made his eleventh film, the high-energy caper "Ocean's Eleven." Next up is the contemporary comedy "Full Frontal," starring David Duchovny, Nicky Katt, Catherine Keener, Mary McCormack, David Hyde-Pierce, Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood.

Soderbergh began making films at age 13 and as an adult, continued making short films and writing screenplays. After shooting a documentary profiling the rock group Yes, Soderbergh was asked to direct a full-length concert film for the band. The result was 9012LIVE, which received a Grammy nomination in 1986.

Two years later, Soderbergh completed the script for "sex, lies, and videotape." Shooting commenced in Baton Rouge in the summer of 1988 with James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher and Laura San Giacomo. The film premiered at the Sundance film festival in January 1989 and four months later won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

This was followed by "Kafka," a black-and-white mystery-suspense film combining elements of Franz Kafka's life, letters and fiction, starring Jeremy Irons; and "King of the Hill," a Great Depression drama based on the memoirs of A.E. Hotchner. In 1995, Soderbergh reunited with Peter Gallagher for ""The Underneath," a dark tale of obsession and betrayal set in present-day Austin, Texas. He then turned to offbeat comedy with the experimental "Schizopolis" and "Gray's Anatomy," the filmed version of Spalding Gray's acclaimed monologue.

In 1998, Soderbergh's sexy crime caper, "Out of Sight," starring George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez was released to great critical acclaim. The National Society of Film Critics honored the film with its top three awards: Best Director, Best Picture and Best Screenplay while the Boston Society of Film Critics gave the film it's Best Picture and Best Screenplay Awards. In addition, the film received Academy Award nominations. 1999 saw the release of "The Limey," an action-drama starring Terrence Stamp, Peter Fonda and Lesley Ann Warren, which earned five Independent Spirit Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Director.

As a producer, Soderbergh's credits include Greg Mottola's "The Daytrippers" (1997) and Gary Ross' "Pleasantville" (1998). As well, he served as the executive producer on David Siegel and Scott McGehee's "Suture" (1994).

In 2000, Soderbergh and George Clooney formed Section Eight, a film production company based at Warner Bros. Soderbergh and Clooney executive produced the recent "Insomnia," directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank. Forthcoming is "Welcome to Collinwood," written and directed by brothers Anthony and Joe Russo; "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," directed by George Clooney, who stars along with Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore and Julia Roberts; and "Far From Heaven," written and directed by Todd Haynes.

Lawrence Taub (Producer)

NAQOYQATSI marks Lawrence Taub's fifth collaboration with director Godfrey Reggio, following "Koyaanisqatsi," "Powaqqatsi," "Anima Mundi" and "Evidence."

Born in New York in 1948, Taub moved to New Mexico in 1974. His association with Reggio dates back to 1976 with financial structuring and legal affairs for the Institute for Regional Education (IRE). He continued his involvement as a producer on "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi" with managing the business and legal demands of the intricate twelve-country shoot. Presently, Taub continues to serve as the general counsel and administrative director of IRE.

Taub is licensed as an attorney and certified public accountant in the states of New York and New Mexico. In addition to his duties for the IRE, Taub is actively engaged in his Santa Fe based law practice, specializing in the taxation of nonprofit organizations, the arts and entertainment law. He and his wife Laurel have two grown children, one of whom, Sam, has a credit for working on Naqoyqatsi.

Joe Beirne (Producer)

Joe Beirne is a producer and technology advisor for film and television post-production. His clients have ranged from visual-effects pioneer Zbigniew Rybczynski to the rock band Talking Heads to PBS's award-winning documentary series, FRONTLINE. Beirne has made a particular specialty of taking on projects that are completed about two years before the necessary technology is actually finished. He is currently working on a feature-length documentary for filmmaker Errol Morris.

A native of New York City, Beirne was educated at New York's Cooper Union and lives in Manhattan with his wife Catherine K. Tice and their son, Gus. He is an active member of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM/SIGGRAPH).

Mel Lawrence (Co-producer)
After twenty years in the music business as a concert producer, festival producer and director of musical events such as the legendary Monterey and Woodstock festivals, Lawrence was a producer on Godfrey Reggio's "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi." He directed the distribution and promotion of these films throughout the world.

Lawrence has also produced film projects from Brazil's Amazon to Kathmandu in Nepal and directed and produced an Emmy nominated documentary for HBO on the Lakota Sioux and their struggle to regain the sacred Black Hills of South Dakota.

Kurt Munkacsi (Music and Soundtrack Producer)
A long-time associate of Philip Glass, Kurt Munkacsi is president of Euphorbia Productions, which owns the Looking Glass studios where Philip Glass records his music. Munkacsi has produced all of Philip Glass's recordings since the beginnings of his career. He has also designed the sophisticated sound systems used for such Glass theatrical works as "Einstein on the Beach," "Koyaanisqatsi," "La Belle et La Bete" and "Monsters of Grace."

Munkacsi has also produced all of Glass's soundtracks, including those for "Koyaanisqatsi" and "Powaqqatsi" and in so doing has worked with directors including Martin Scorsese, Peter Weir, Errol Morris and Paul Schrader. He and Glass also created the record label Point Music in a joint venture with Polygram International. Their score for Scorsese's "Kundun" received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations and won the L.A. Film Critics Award for Best Score and their score for Weir's "The Truman Show" won a Golden Globe.

Munkacsi has also worked with many other artists, including Diamanda Galas, Brian Eno, David Bowie, The Waitresses and Gavin Bryars.

Michael Riesman (Conductor)

A composer, conductor, keyboardist, engineer and all-around studio guru, Michael Riesman has had a long-lived collaborative relationship with Philip Glass. When Glass received his Golden Globe Award for "The Truman Show" score, he publicly proclaimed Riesman "a genius."

Riesman has conducted all of Glass's film scores, starting with "Koyaanisqatsi" and including the award-winning score for Martin Scorsese's "Kundun." His work with Glass also includes conducting, engineering and production credits for "Einstein on the Beach," "Songs from Liquid Days" and "La Belle et La Bete."

In addition to his association with Philip Glass, Riesman has worked with such artists as David Bowie, Paul Simon, Ray Manzarek, Gavin Bryars and Uakti. His own compositions include film scores, ballets, theater music and concert works. He also released his own album entitled "Formal Abandon."

Russell Lee Fine (Director of Cinematography)
Russell Lee Fine has worked extensively in independent cinema and his work will next be seen in Ed Burns' "Ash Wednesday" starring Burns, Elijah Wood, Oliver Platt and Rosario Dawson. In addition to lensing Tim Blake Nelson's "The Grey Zone," "O" and "Eye of God," he has worked with Cindy Sherman on "Office Killer," Bruce Wagner on "Women in Film" Tony Gerber on "Side Streets," Jim McKay on "Girl's Town" (winner of the Audience Award and Special Filmmaker's Trophy at Sundance) and Richard Schenkman on "Pompatus of Love."

Russell Lee Fine's work has also been seen on the VH-1 concert series "Storytellers" with Elvis Costello, Lyle Lovett, James Taylor and Garth Brooks, among others.