Composer of the Week

To many, Steve Reich is known as one of a few notable minimalist composers of the twentieth century. He is often referenced in conversation with Philip Glass, Terry Riley, or John Adams, yet there is an unmistakable aspect of Reich’s music that continually heightens a listener’s sense of musical color and motion, imposing a sort of curiosity as to the music’s simplicity or complexity. That aspect? A certain, je ne sais quoi, to be exact.

Steve Reich, born in New York in 1936, redefined musical composition in the latter years of the twentieth century. Having studied with such notable composers as Vincent Persichetti, Luciano Berio, and Darius Milhaud, Reich is well-versed in both serial and tonal techniques. This eclectic background led him to consider other elements for composition aside from the usual melody with harmony. While these elements exist in his music, Reich has focused some of his works entirely on rhythm (Clapping Music, 1972), phasing and timbre (Piano Phase, 1967), and specific harmonic and register considerations (Music for 18 Musicians, 1976). According to Reich,

What I’m interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one in the same thing.

His studies in philosophy and music, coupled with studies in African drumming, Gamelan music, and Hebrew cantillation have awarded him countless times. In addition to Reich and his formed ensemble of Musicians selling out Carnegie Hall, he has won two Grammy Awards, been selected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, and awarded membership to the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest.

Reich’s works have been performed by the world’s top orchestras and ensembles. In Tokyo in 2007, he was awarded the prestigious Preamium Imperial Award in Music, an international award given in areas of the arts not covered by the Nobel Prize.

As for the certain je ne sais quoi, it is a testament to Reich’s ability to seamlessly blend the process, with the music.

Clapping Music, by Steve Reich

Other Notable Works:

Piano Phase (1967), for two pianos

Music for Pieces of Wood (1973), for pitched claves

Different Trains (1988), for string quartet and tape

Three Tales (2001), a three-act digital video opera, recalling three events of the twentieth century: the Hindenburg disaster (1937); Bikini Atoll atomic testing (1946-54); Cloning of Dolly the Sheep (1997)