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Biography
Use mdy dates|date=August 2011 Stephen Michael "Steve" Reich (IPAc-en|icon|'|r|a?|?;cite web |url= http://www.loc.gov/nls/other/sayhow.html#r |title=Say How? A Pronunciation Guide to Names of Public Figures |date=May 2006 |publisher=National Library Service |accessdate=October 15, 2009. See also here http://iowapublicradio.org/dictionary/errata.htm#R and http://download.itv.com/southbankshow/reich.m4a here (sound clip) born October 3, 1936) is an American composer who is one of the pioneering composers of minimal music along with La Monte Young , Terry Riley , and Philip Glass .Mertens, W. (1983), American Minimal Music , Kahn & Averill, London, (p.11).Michael Nyman, writing in the preface of Mertens' book refers to the style as "so called minimal music"(ibid p.8)."The term 'minimal music' is generally used to describe a style of music that developed in America in the late 1960s and 1970s; and that was initially connected with the composers La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass." Sitsky, L. (2002), Music of the twentieth-century avant-garde: a biocritical sourcebook, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT. (p.361)
His innovations include using tape loop s to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, " It's Gonna Rain " and " Come Out (Reich)|Come Out "), and the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts (for instance, " Pendulum Music " and " Four Organs "). These compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have significantly influenced contemporary music , especially in the US. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition|Grammy Award -winning Different Trains .
Reich's style of composition influenced many other composers and musical groups. Reich has been described, in The Guardian by music critic Andrew Clements, as one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history",cite web|url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vct73 |title=Radio 3 Programmes - Composer of the Week, Steve Reich (b.1936), Episode 1 |publisher=BBC |date=2010-10-25 |accessdate=2011-10-16 and the critic Kyle Gann has said Reich "may...be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer."cite news |url= http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-07-13/music/grand-old-youngster |last=Gann |first=Kyle |authorlink=Kyle Gann |title=Grand Old Youngster |work= The Village Voice |date=July 13, 1999 |accessdate=September 27, 2008
On January 25, 2007, Reich was named the 2007 recipient of the Polar Music Prize , together with jazz saxophonist Sonny Rollins . On April 20, 2009, Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his Double Sextet .cite web|url= http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2009-Music |title=Pulitzer Prize for Music citation 2009 |publisher=Pulitzer.org |date= |accessdate=2011-10-16
Career
Early life
Reich was born in New York City to the Broadway lyricist June Carroll|June Sillman . When he was one year old, his parents divorced, and Reich divided his time between New York and California. He was given piano lessons as a child and describes growing up with the "middle-class favorites", having no exposure to music written before 1750 or after 1900. At the age of 14 he began to study music in earnest, after hearing music from the Baroque music|Baroque period and earlier, as well as music of the 20th century. Reich studied drums with Roland Kohloff in order to play jazz . While attending Cornell University , he took some music courses, but he graduated in 1957 with a B.A. in Philosophy. Reich's B.A. thesis was on Ludwig Wittgenstein ; later he would set texts by that philosopher to music in Proverb (Reich)|Proverb (1995) and You Are (variations) (2006).
For a year following graduation, Reich studied composition privately with Hall Overton before he enrolled at Juilliard School|Juilliard to work with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti (1958–1961). Subsequently he attended Mills College in Oakland, California , where he studied with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud (1961–1963) and earned a master's degree in composition. At Mills, Reich composed Melodica for melodica and tape recorder|tape , which appeared in 1986 on the three-LP release Music from Mills .Allmusic|class=album|id=r202182|pure_url=yes Music from Mills at Allmusic
Reich worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center along with Pauline Oliveros , Ramon Sender , Morton Subotnick , and Terry Riley .cite book|last=Bernstein|first=David|title=The San Francisco Tape Music Center|year=2008|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-24892-2 He was involved with the premiere of Riley's In C and suggested the use of the eighth note pulse, which is now standard in performance of the piece.
1960s
Reich's early forays into composition involved experimentation with twelve-tone composition , but he found the rhythmic aspects of the twelve-tone series more interesting than the melodic aspects.Malcolm Ball http://www.oliviermessiaen.org/malcolmball/reich.htm on Steve Reich Reich also composed film soundtracks for Plastic Haircut , Oh Dem Watermelons , and Thick Pucker , three films by Robert Nelson (filmmaker)|Robert Nelson . The soundtrack of Plastic Haircut , composed in 1963, was a short tape collage, possibly Reich's first. The Watermelons soundtrack used two old Stephen Foster minstrel tune s as its basis, and used repeated phrasing together in a large five-part canon (music)|canon . The music for Thick Pucker arose from street recordings Reich made walking around San Francisco with Nelson, who filmed in black and white 16mm. This film no longer survives. A fourth film from 1965, about 25 minutes long and tentatively entitled "Thick Pucker II", was assembled by Nelson from outtakes of that shoot and more of the raw audio Reich had recorded. Nelson was not happy with the resulting film and never showed it.
Reich was influenced by fellow minimalist Terry Riley , whose work In C combines simple musical patterns, offset in time, to create a slowly shifting, cohesive whole. Reich adopted this approach to compose his first major work, '' It's Gonna Rain ''. Composed in 1965, the piece used a fragment of a sermon about the end of the world given by a black Pentecostal street-preacher known as Brother Walter. Reich built on his early tape work, transferring the last three words of the fragment, "it's gonna rain!", to multiple tape loops which gradually move out of phase with one another.
The 13-minute " Come Out (Reich)|Come Out " (1966) uses similarly manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by Daniel Hamm , one of the falsely accused The Harlem Six|Harlem Six , who was severely injured by police. The survivor, who had been beaten, punctured a bruise on his own body to convince police about his beating. The spoken line includes the phrase "to let the bruise’s blood come out to show them." Reich rerecorded the fragment "come out to show them" on two channels, which are initially played in unison. They quickly slip out of sync; gradually the discrepancy widens and becomes a reverberation. The two voices then split into four, looped continuously, then eight, and continues splitting until the actual words are unintelligible, leaving the listener with only the speech's rhythmic and tonal patterns.
A similar, lesser known example of process music is " Pendulum Music " (1968), which consists of the sound of several microphones swinging over the loudspeakers to which they are attached, producing feedback as they do so. "Pendulum Music" has never been recorded by Reich himself, but was introduced to rock audiences by Sonic Youth in the late 1990s.
Reich's first attempt at translating this phasing technique from recorded tape to live performance was the 1967 Piano Phase , for two pianos. In Piano Phase the performers repeat a rapid twelve-note melody|melodic figure, initially in unison. As one player keeps tempo with robotic precision, the other speeds up very slightly until the two parts line up again, but one sixteenth note apart. The second player then resumes the previous tempo. This cycle of speeding up and then locking in continues throughout the piece; the cycle comes full circle three times, the second and third cycles using shorter versions of the initial figure. Violin Phase , also written in 1967, is built on these same lines. Piano Phase and Violin Phase both premiered in a series of concerts given in New York art galleries.
Reich also tried to create the phasing effect in a piece "that would need no instrument beyond the human body". He found that the idea of phasing was inappropriate for the simple ways he was experimenting to make sound. Instead, he composed Clapping Music (1972), in which the players do not phase in and out with each other, but instead one performer keeps one line of a 12-quaver-long (12-eighth-note-long) phrase and the other performer shifts by one quaver beat every 12 bars, until both performers are back in unison 144 bars later.
The 1967 prototype piece Slow Motion Sound was not performed although Chris Hughes (record producer)|Chris Hughes performed it 27 years later as " Slow Motion Blackbird " on his Reich-influenced 1994 album Shift . It introduced the idea of slowing down a recorded sound until many times its original length without changing pitch or timbre, which Reich applied to Four Organs (1970), which deals specifically with augmentation. The piece has maraca s playing a fast eighth note pulse (music)|pulse , while the four organs stress certain eighth notes using an 11th chord. This work therefore dealt with repetition (music)|repetition and subtle rhythmic change. It is unique in the context of Reich's other pieces in being linear as opposed to cyclic like his earlier works— the superficially similar Phase Patterns , also for four organs but without maracas, is (as the name suggests) a phase piece similar to others composed during the period. Four Organs was performed as part of a Boston Symphony Orchestra program, and was Reich's first composition to be performed in a large traditional setting.
1970s
In 1971, Reich embarked on a five-week trip to study music in Ghana , during which he learned from the master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie. Reich also studied Bali nese gamelan in Seattle . From his African experience, as well as A. M. Jones 's Studies in African Music (book)| Studies in African Music about the Ewe music|music of the Ewe people, Reich drew inspiration for his 90-minute piece Drumming (Reich)|Drumming , which he composed shortly after his return. Composed for a nine-piece percussion ensemble with female voices and piccolo , Drumming marked the beginning of a new stage in his career, for around this time he formed his ensemble, Steve Reich and Musicians , and increasingly concentrated on composition and performance with them. Steve Reich and Musicians, which was to be the sole ensemble to interpret his works for many years, still remains active with many of its original members.
After Drumming , Reich moved on from the "phase shifting" technique that he had pioneered, and began writing more elaborate pieces. He investigated other musical processes such as augmentation (music)|augmentation (the temporal lengthening of phrases and melodic fragments). It was during this period that he wrote works such as Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973) and Six Pianos (1973).
In 1974, Reich began writing what many would call his seminal work, Music for 18 Musicians . This piece involved many new ideas, although it also hearkened back to earlier pieces. It is based on a cycle (music)|cycle of chord progression|eleven chords introduced at the beginning (called "Pulses"), followed by a small section of music based on each chord (music)|chord ("Sections I-XI"), and finally a return to the original cycle ("Pulses"). This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger musical ensemble|ensemble s. The increased number of performers resulted in more scope for psychoacoustic effects, which fascinated Reich, and he noted that he would like to "explore this idea further". Reich remarked that this one work contained more harmonic movement in the first five minutes than any other work he had written. Steve Reich and Musicians made the premier recording of this work on ECM Records .
Reich explored these ideas further in his frequently recorded pieces Music for a Large Ensemble (1978) and Octet (1979). In these two works, Reich experimented with "the human breath as the measure of musical duration … the chords played by the trumpets are written to take one comfortable breath to perform".Liner notes for Music for a Large Ensemble Human voices are part of the musical palette in Music for a Large Ensemble but the wordless vocal parts simply form part of the texture (as they do in Drumming ). With Octet and his first orchestral piece Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards (also 1979), Reich's music showed the influence of Biblical cantillation , which he had studied in Israel since the summer of 1977. After this, the human voice singing a text would play an increasingly important role in Reich's music. cquote|The technique … consists of taking pre-existing melodic patterns and stringing them together to form a longer melody in the service of a holy text. If you take away the text, you're left with the idea of putting together small motives to make longer melodies – a technique I had not encountered before.Schwarz, K. Robert. Minimalists , Phaidon Press, 1996, p.84 and p.86.In 1974 Reich published a book, Writings About Music (ISBN 0814773583), containing essays on his philosophy, aesthetics, and musical projects written between 1963 and 1974. An updated and much more extensive collection, Writings On Music (1965–2000) (ISBN 0195111710), was published in 2002.
1980s
Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage. Tehillim (Reich)|Tehillim (1981), Hebrew language|Hebrew for psalm s , is the first of Reich's works to draw explicitly on his Jewish background. The work is in four parts, and is scored for an ensemble of four women's voices (one high soprano , two lyric sopranos and one alto ), piccolo , flute , oboe , English horn , two clarinet s, six percussion (playing small tuned tambourine s without jingles, clapping, maraca s, marimba , vibraphone and crotales ), two electronic organ s, two violins, viola , cello and double bass , with amplified voices, strings, and winds. A setting of texts from psalms 19:2–5 (19:1–4 in Christian translations), 34:13–15 (34:12–14), 18:26–27 (18:25–26), and 150:4–6, Tehillim is a departure from Reich's other work in its formal structure; the setting of texts several lines long rather than the fragments used in previous works makes melody a substantive element. Use of formal counterpoint and functional harmony also contrasts with the loosely structured minimalist works written previously.
listen| filename = Pat Metheny-Electric Counterpoint III Fast.ogg | title = Pat Metheny "Electric Counterpoint III Fast" (1989) | description = 25 seconds of "Electric Counterpoint III Fast" performed by Pat Metheny. Composed by Steve Reich. From http://www.discogs.com/release/108357 "Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint" album. | format = Ogg Different Trains (1988), for string quartet and tape, uses recorded speech, as in his earlier works, but this time as a melodic rather than a rhythmic element. In Different Trains Reich compares and contrasts his childhood memories of his train journeys between New York and California in 1939–1941 with the very different trains being used to transport contemporaneous European children to their deaths under Nazism|Nazi rule. The Kronos Quartet recording of Different Trains was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 1990. The composition was described by Richard Taruskin as "the only adequate musical response—one of the few adequate artistic responses in any medium—to the Holocaust ", and he credited the piece with earning Reich a place among the great composers of the 20th century.cite news |url= http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? res=9C0CE4D91F3FF937A1575BC0A961958260& sec=& spon=& pagewanted=all |last=Taruskin |first=Richard |authorlink=Richard Taruskin |title=A Sturdy Musical Bridge to the 21st Century |work=The New York Times |date=August 24, 1997 |accessdate=September 27, 2008
1990s to present
In 1993, Reich collaborated with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot , on an opera, The Cave (opera)|The Cave , which explores the roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam through the words of Israel is, Palestinian people|Palestinian s, and United States|America ns, echoed musically by the ensemble. The work, for percussion, voices, and strings, is a musical documentary, named for the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron , where a mosque now stands and Abraham is said to have been buried. The two collaborated again on the opera Three Tales (opera)|Three Tales , which concerns the Hindenburg disaster , the testing of nuclear weapon s on Bikini Atoll , and other more modern concerns, specifically Dolly the sheep , cloning , and the technological singularity .
As well as pieces using sampling techniques, like Three Tales and City Life (Reich)|City Life (1994), Reich also returned to composing purely instrumental works for the concert hall, starting with Triple Quartet (1998) written for the Kronos Quartet that can either be performed by string quartet and tape, three string quartets or 36-piece string orchestra. According to Reich, the piece is influenced by Béla Bartók|Bartók 's and Alfred Schnittke 's string quartets, and Michael Gordon (composer)|Michael Gordon 's Yo Shakespeare .cite web|url= http://www.stevereich.com/articles/NY-VT.html |title=From New York to Vermont: Conversation with Steve Reich |publisher=Stevereich.com |date= |accessdate=2011-10-16 This series continued with Dance Patterns (2002), Cello Counterpoint (2003), and sequence of works centered around Variations: You Are (Variations) (2004) (a work which looks back to the vocal writing of works like Tehillim or The Desert Music ), Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings (2005, for the London Sinfonietta ) and Daniel Variations (2006).
Invited by Walter Fink , he was the 12th composer featured in the annual Rheingau Musik Festival#Portraits of living composers|Komponistenporträt of the Rheingau Musik Festival in 2002.
In an interview with The Guardian , Reich stated that he continues to follow this direction with his piece Double Sextet (2007) commissioned by eighth blackbird , an American ensemble consisting of the instrumental quintet ( flute , clarinet , violin or viola , cello and piano) of Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg 's piece Pierrot Lunaire (1912) plus percussion. Reich states that he was thinking about Stravinsky's Agon (Stravinsky)|Agon (1957) as a model for the instrumental writing.
Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, on April 20, 2009, for Double Sextet ."2009 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music", The New York Times , April 20, 2009.
December 2010 NoneSuch and Indaba Music held a community remix contest where over 250 submissions were received, and Steve Reich and Christian Carey judged the finals. Reich spoke in a related BBC interview that once he composed a piece he would not alter it again himself; "when it's done, it's done". On the other hand he acknowledged that "remixes" have an old tradition e.g. famous religious music pieces where melodies were further developed into new songs.cite web|url= http://www.indabamusic.com/opportunities/steve-reich-remix-contest |title=Steve Reich Remix Contest - 2x5 Movement 3 |publisher=Indaba Music |date= |accessdate=2011-10-16
In May 2011, Steve Reich received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music .cite web|url= http://necmusic.edu/commencement-2011 |title=Commencement 2011 & #124; New England Conservatory |publisher=Necmusic.edu |date= |accessdate=2011-10-16
Influence
Reich's style of composition has influenced many other composers and musical groups, including John Coolidge Adams|John Adams , the progressive rock band King Crimson , the new-age guitarist Michael Hedges , the art-pop and electronic musician Brian Eno , the experimental art/music group The Residents , the composers associated with the Bang on a Can festival (including David Lang (composer)|David Lang , Michael Gordon (composer)|Michael Gordon , and Julia Wolfe ), and numerous indie rock musicians including songwriter Sufjan Stevens cite web |url= http://www.wnyc.org/music/articles/66792 |last=Wise |first=Brian |title=Steve Reich @ 70 on WNYC |year=2006 |publisher= WNYC Retrieved on September 27, 2008.cite news |url= http://dn.sapo.pt/2006/11/12/artes/o_passado_presente_steve_reich_porto.html |author=Joana de Belém |title=O passado e o presente de Steve Reich no Porto |date=November 12, 2006 |work= Diário de Notícias |language=Portuguese Retrieved on September 27, 2008. and instrumental ensembles Tortoise (band)|Tortoise ,cite web |url= http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/tortoise/a-lazarus-taxon.htm |archiveurl= http://web.archive.org/web/20060917055800/ http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/tortoise/a-lazarus-taxon.htm |archivedate=September 17, 2006 |last=Hutlock |first=Todd |title=Tortoise& nbsp;– A Lazarus Taxon |work= Stylus Magazine |date=September 1, 2006 Retrieved on September 27, 2008.cite web |url= http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/230069/review/5941937/tnt |last=Ratliff |first=Ben |title=TNT : Tortoise : Review |date=March 23, 1998 |work=Rolling Stone Retrieved on September 27, 2008.cite web |url= http://www.guelphjazzfestival.com/2008_season/performers/tortoise_illinois |title=Performers: Tortoise (Illinois) |year=2008 |publisher=Guelph Jazz Festival Retrieved on September 27, 2008. The Mercury Program (themselves influenced by Tortoise),cite news |url= http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2001-05-10/music/we-have-liftoff |last=Stratton |first=Jeff |title=We Have Liftoff |work= Broward-Palm Beach New Times |date=May 10, 2001 Retrieved on September 27, 2008.So Many Dynamos , Do Make Say Think and Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band|A Silver Mt. Zion .Citation needed|date=July 2007 Godspeed You& #33; Black Emperor composed a song, unreleased, entitled "Steve Reich".cite web|url= http://brainwashed.com/godspeed/music.html |title=sad |publisher=Brainwashed.com |date= |accessdate=2011-10-16
John Adams commented, "He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride." John Coolidge Adams|John Adams : "...For him, pulsation and tonality were not just cultural artifacts. They were the lifeblood of the musical experience, natural laws. It was his triumph to find a way to embrace these fundamental principles and still create a music that felt genuine and new. He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride." See for instance the articles section of the cite web|url= http://www.stevereich.com/|title=Steve Reich Website|accessdate=January 31, 2010 He has also influenced visual artists such as Bruce Nauman , and many notable choreographers have made dances to his music, Eliot Feld , Jirí Kylián , Douglas Lee and Jerome Robbins among others; he has expressed particular admiration of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker 's work set to his pieces.
In featuring a sample of Reich's Electric Counterpoint (1987) the British ambient techno act the Orb exposed a new generation of listeners to the composer's music with its 1990 production “ Little Fluffy Clouds .”Emmerson, S. (2007), Music, Electronic Media, and Culture , Ashgate, Adlershot, p.68. Further acknowledgment of Reich's influence on various electronic dance music producers came with the release in 1999 of the Reich Remixed http://www.discogs.com/release/27570 Reich Remixed: album track listing at www.discogs.com tribute album which featured reinterpretations by artists such as DJ Spooky , Kurtis Mantronik , Ken Ishii , and Coldcut , among others.
Reich often cites Pérotin , Johann Sebastian Bach|J.S. Bach , Claude Debussy|Debussy , Béla Bartók|Bartók , and Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky as composers he admires, whose tradition he wished as a young composer to become part of.cite web|url= http://www.stevereich.com/articles/Anne_Teresa_de_Keersmaeker_intervies.html |title=Questions from Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker & Answers from |publisher=Steve Reich |date= |accessdate=2011-10-16 Jazz is a major part of the formation of Reich's musical style, and two of the earliest influences on his work were vocalists Ella Fitzgerald and Alfred Deller , whose emphasis on the artistic capabilities of the voice alone with little vibrato or other alteration was an inspiration to his earliest works. John Coltrane 's style, which Reich has described as "playing a lot of notes to very few harmonies", also had an impact; of particular interest was the album Africa/Brass , which "was basically a half-an-hour in F."cite web|url= http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_reich.html |title=Steve Reich Interview with Gabrielle Zuckerman, July 2002 |publisher=Musicmavericks.publicradio.org |date= |accessdate=2011-10-16 Reich's influence from jazz includes its roots, also, from the West African music he studied in his readings and visit to Ghana. Other important influences are Kenny Clarke and Miles Davis , and visual artist friends such as Sol LeWitt and Richard Serra . Reich recently contributed the introduction to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky .
Recent projects
Reich has the world premiere of a piece, WTC 9/11 , written for String Quartet and Tape, a similar instrumentation to that of Different Trains . It premiered in March 2011 by the Kronos Quartet , at Duke University , North Carolina, USA.Citation needed|date=April 2011
Quotations
Quotation|... I drove a cab in San Francisco, and in New York I worked as a part-time social worker. Philip Glass|Phil Glass and I had a moving company for a short period of time. I did all kinds of odd jobs ... I started making a living as a performer in my own ensemble. I would never have thought that it was how I was going to survive financially. It was a complete wonder.
— From an interview with Richard Kessler, 1998 cite web|url= http://www.newmusicbox.org/archive/firstperson/reich/index.html|title=Steve Reich Interview (7/98) – Richard Kessler, Executive Director of the American Music Center, talks with Steve Reich|date=1998-07|work=NewMusicBox|publisher= American Music Center |accessdate=10 April 2011 Quotation|The point is, if you went to Paris and dug up Debussy and said, 'Excusez-moi Monsieur…are you an impressionist? ' he'd probably say 'Merde!' and go back to sleep. That is a legitimate concern of musicologists, music historians, and journalists, and it's a convenient way of referring to me, Riley, Glass, La Monte Young ... it's become the dominant style. But, anybody who's interested in French Impressionism is interested in how different Debussy and Maurice Ravel|Ravel and Satie are—and ditto for what's called minimalism . ... Basically, those kind of words are taken from painting and sculpture, and applied to musicians who composed at the same period as that painting and sculpture was made ....
— From an Interview with Rebecca Y. Kim , 2000 http://www.stevereich.com www.stevereich.com Quotation|All musicians in the past, starting with the middle ages were interested in popular music. (...) Béla Bartók 's music is made entirely of sources from Hungarian folk music . And Igor Stravinsky , although he lied about it, used all kinds of Russian sources for his early ballets. Kurt Weill|Kurt Weill's great masterpiece Dreigroschenoper is using the cabaret -style of the Weimar Republic and that's why it is such a masterpiece. Only artificial division between popular and classical music happened unfortunately through the blindness of Arnold Schoenberg and his followers to create an artificial wall, which never existed before him. In my generation we tore the wall down and now we are back to the normal situation, for example if Brian Eno or David Bowie come to me, and if popular musicians remix my music like The Orb or DJ Spooky it is a good thing. This is a natural normal regular historical way.
— From an Interview with Jakob Buhre Buhre, Jakob. http://www.planet-interview.de/interviews/pi.php? interview=reich-steve_en Interview with Steve Reich: We tore the wall down, Planet Interview (August 14, 2000). Accessed September 20, 2006.
Works
Soundtrack for The Plastic Haircut , tape (1963)
Music for two or more pianos (1964)
Livelihood (1964)
'' It's Gonna Rain , tape (1965)
Soundtrack for Oh Dem Watermelons , tape (1965)
Come Out (Reich)|Come Out , tape (1966)
Melodica , for melodica and tape (1966)
Reed Phase , for soprano saxophone and tape (1966)
Piano Phase for two pianos, or two marimbas (1967)
Slow Motion Sound concept piece (1967)
Violin Phase for violin and tape or four violins (1967)
My Name Is for three tape recorders and performers (1967)
Pendulum Music for 3 or 4 microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers (1968) (revised 1973)*cite book
| last = Reich | first = Steve | title = Writings on Music | publisher=New York University Press | date = 1975 (New Edition) | location = USA | pages = 12–13 | isbn = 0-8147-7357-5
Four Organs for four electric organs and maracas (1970)
Phase Patterns (Reich)|Phase Patterns for four electric organs (1970)
Drumming (Reich)|Drumming for 4 pairs of tuned bongo drums, 3 marimbas, 3 glockenspiels, 2 female voices, whistling and piccolo (1970/1971)
Clapping Music for two musicians clapping (1972)
Music for Pieces of Wood for five pairs of tuned claves (1973)
Six Pianos (1973) – transcribed as Six Marimbas (1986)
Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973)
Music for 18 Musicians (1974–76)
Music for a Large Ensemble (1978)
Octet (Reich)|Octet (1979) – withdrawn in favor of the 1983 revision for slightly larger ensemble, Eight Lines
Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards for orchestra (1979)
Tehillim (Reich)|Tehillim for voices and ensemble (1981)
Vermont Counterpoint for amplified flute and tape (1982)
The Desert Music for chorus and orchestra or voices and ensemble (1983, text by William Carlos Williams )
Sextet (Reich)|Sextet for percussion and keyboards (1984)
New York Counterpoint for amplified clarinet and tape, or 11 clarinets and bass clarinet (1985)
Three Movements for orchestra (1986)
Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar or amplified acoustic guitar and tape (1987, for Pat Metheny )
The Four Sections for orchestra (1987)
Different Trains for string quartet and tape (1988)
The Cave (opera)|The Cave for four voices, ensemble and video (1993, with Beryl Korot )
Duet for two violins and string ensemble (1993)
Nagoya Marimbas for two marimba s (1994)
City Life (Reich)|City Life for amplified ensemble (1995)
Proverb (Reich)|Proverb for voices and ensemble (1995, text by Ludwig Wittgenstein )
Triple Quartet for amplified string quartet (with prerecorded tape), or three string quartets, or string orchestra (1998)
Know What Is Above You for four women’s voices and 2 tamborim s (1999)
Three Tales (opera)|Three Tales for video projection, five voices and ensemble (1998–2002, with Beryl Korot )
Dance Patterns for 2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones and 2 pianos (2002)
Cello Counterpoint for amplified cello and multichannel tape (2003)
You Are (Variations) for voices and ensemble (2004)
For Strings (with Winds and Brass) for orchestra (1987/2004)
Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings dance piece for three string quartets, four vibraphones, and two pianos (2005)
Daniel Variations for four voices and ensemble (2006)
Double Sextet for 2 violins, 2 cellos, 2 pianos, 2 vibraphones, 2 clarinets, 2 flutes or ensemble and pre-recorded tape (2007)
2x5 for 2 drum sets, 2 pianos, 4 electric guitars and 2 bass guitars (2008)
Mallet Quartet for 2 marimbas and 2 vibraphones or 4 marimbas (or solo percussion and tape) (2009)
WTC 9/11 for String Quartet and Tape (2010)
Selected discography
Drumming (Reich)|Drumming . Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: Deutsche Grammophon and Nonesuch Records|Nonesuch ) So Percussion (Cantaloupe)
Music for 18 Musicians . Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: ECM (record label)|ECM and Nonesuch), Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble (Innova), Ensemble Modern (RCA).
Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase . Steve Reich and Musicians ( ECM (record label)|ECM )
Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards/Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ/ Six Pianos . San Francisco Symphony Orchestra , Edo de Waart , Steve Reich & Musicians (Deutsche Grammophon)
Tehillim / The Desert Music . Alarm Will Sound and OSSIA, Alan Pierson (Cantaloupe)
Different Trains / Electric Counterpoint . Kronos Quartet , Pat Metheny (Nonesuch)
You Are (Variations)/Cello Counterpoint . Los Angeles Master Chorale , Grant Gershon, Maya Beiser (Nonesuch)
Steve Reich: Works 1965-1995 . Various performers (Nonesuch).
Daniel Variations , with Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings . London Sinfonietta , Grant Gershon, Alan Pierson (Nonesuch)
Double Sextet/2x5 , Eighth Blackbird and Bang on a Can (Nonesuch)
Piano Phase , transcribed for guitar, Alexandre Gérard (Catapult)
Phase to Face , a film documentary about Steve Reich by Eric Darmon & Franck Mallet (EuroArts) http://www2.euroarts.com/artikel/dvd/? id=005812_steve_reich_phase_to_face DVD
Further reading
D.J. Hoek. Steve Reich: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 2002.
Steve Reich. Writings about Music. Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 1974.
K. Robert Schwarz. Minimalists. Phaidon Press, 1996.
Potter, Keith (2000). Four Musical Minimalists: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass. Music in the Twentieth Century series. Cambridge, UK; New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.
cite book
| last = Reich | first = Steve | coauthors = Hillier, Paul (Editor) | title = Writings on Music, 1965–2000 | publisher=Oxford University Press | date = April 1, 2002 | location = USA | page = 272 | isbn = 0-19-511171-0
cite book
| last = Reich | first = Steve | title = Writings About Music | publisher=Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design | year = 1974 | location = Halifax | page = 78 | isbn = 0-919616-02-X
External links
wikiquotecommons categoryRefbegin
http://www.stevereich.com/ SteveReich.com – Official Website
http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/composer/composer_main.asp? composerid=2781 Boosey & Hawkes, Official Publisher: biography, works list, resources
BrahmsOnline|2700
http://www.lsre.co.uk/ London Steve Reich Ensemble – Official website
http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/memory/memorials0/europe-during-war0/ Music and the Holocaust – Different Trains
Refend ;Interviews Refbegin
http://www.vitaminic.co.uk/vita/specials/steve_reich/part1.jsp A Steve Reich Interview with Christopher Abbot
http://www.bruceduffie.com/reich.html Two interviews with Steve Reich by Bruce Duffie (October, 1985 & November, 1995)
http://www.newmusicbox.org/archive/firstperson/reich/ Steve Reich Interview (7/98) with Richard Kessler
http://www.topologymusic.com/index.php/time-and-motion-an-interview-with-steve-reich/ Time and Motion: an interview with Steve Reich, by Robert Davidson, 1999
http://www.disquiet.com/stevereich-script.html A Steve Reich Interview with Marc Weidenbaum, 1999
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20000717.atc.06.rmm "Drumming" – Interview & analysis, selected as one of the http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html NPR 100 most important musical works of the 20th century. Realaudio format, timing: 12:46, July, 2000
http://www.planet-interview.de/interviews/pi.php? interview=reich-steve_en Steve Reich Interview with Jakob Buhre, August 2000
http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx? id=3810 In Conversation with Steve Reich, by Molly Sheridan, June 2002
http://www.ensemble-modern.com/english/kritiken/archiv/i-a021.htm Steve Reich and Beryl Korot interviewed by David Allenby, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/homeentertainment/story/0,,1114656,00.html An interview in The Guardian , January 2, 2004
http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx? id=63fp00 The Next Phase: Steve Reich talks to Richard Kessler About Redefinition and Renewal, 2004
http://adventuresinmusic.biz/Archives/Interviews/stevereich.htm "How Small a Thought it Takes to Fill a Whole Life" – An Interview with Not-So-Minimalist Composer Steve Reich on AdventuresInMusic.biz, 2005
http://www.ensemble-modern.com/english/kritiken/archiv/i-a024.htm A Steve Reich Interview with Hermann Kretzschmar on You Are (Variations) , 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,,1602076,00.html The beaten track, an interview with Reich, by Andrew Clements, The Guardian, October 28, 2005
http://www.rte.ie/tv/theview/archive/20060529.html An interview with Steve Reich on RTE television, National Broadcaster in Ireland, May 29, 2006
http://www.musicomh.com/classical_features/reich_1006.htm An interview with Steve Reich on musicOMH.com, October 2006
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/39540/Interview_Interview_Steve_Reich Interview: Steve Reich, by Joshua Klein, November 22, 2006.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? storyId=6209213 "Steve Reich at 70" from NPR Fresh Air broadcast October 6, 2006 includes interview about "It's Gonna Rain", "Drumming", and "Tehillim" that first aired in 1999 and another on "Different Trains" from 1989 (Realaudio format, timing: 39:25)
http://mediatheque.cite-musique.fr/masc/? url=/MediaComposite/CMDI/CMDI000001900/default.htm "Video Interview (Feb. 2006)", Cité de la musique, Paris, France
http://www.flypmedia.com/issues/29/#8/1 "Two Arts Beating As One" – Interviews with Steve Reich and his wife Beryl Korot with video and audio clips, May 2009
Refend ;Listening Refbegin
http://radiom.org/detail.php? omid=C.1971.03.14 Steve Reich at UC Berkeley University Museum (November 7, 1970) Streaming audio
http://www.whitney.org/www/exhibition/stevereich.jsp Steve Reich at the Whitney "October 15, 2006" MP3
http://download.itv.com/southbankshow/reich.m4a Reich speaks about Daniel Variations for the South Bank Show
Refend ;Others Refbegin
http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/reich.html Classical Music Pages: Steve Reich biography
BrahmsOnline|2700
http://www.duke.edu/~dks3/Reich/ A Description/documentary of Steve Reich from Duke University, includes sound samples and quotes
http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/reich.html EST:Steve Reich by Roger Sutherland
http://www.columbia.edu/ccnmtl/draft/ben/feld/mod1/readings/reich.html Music as a Gradual Process by Steve Reich
http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/news/further_info.asp? NewsID=10960& LangID= Steve Reich: You Are (Variations) premiere in LA (October 2004)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? storyId=6155645 New York Fetes Composer Steve Reich at 70 from National Public Radio|NPR
http://www.newyorker.com/critics/music/articles/061113crmu_music Fascinating rhythm. Celebrating Steve Reich. Article by Alex Ross from The New Yorker.
http://www.polarmusicprize.se/newSite/press200701.shtml Steve Reich & Sonny Rollins winners of the Polar Music Prize for 2007 Press release of Polar Prize announcement
Refend Steve ReichPolar Music PrizePulitzerPrize MusicComposers 2001–2025 Persondata | NAME = Reich, Steve | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION = American Composer | DATE OF BIRTH = October 3, 1936 | PLACE OF BIRTH = New York City, United States | DATE OF DEATH = | PLACE OF DEATH =
DEFAULTSORT:Reich, Steve Category:20th-century classical composers Category:21st-century classical composers Category:Postmodern composers Category:Minimalist composers Category:Opera composers Category:Nonesuch Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:ECM artists Category:Pulitzer Prize winners Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:Cornell University alumni Category:1936 births Category:Living people Category:Guggenheim Fellows