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)

Known primarily for his art songs (which number over 500), he has been the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for his Air Music for orchestra, as well both a Fulbright (1951) and Guggenhiem (1957) Fellowship. He is a three-time recipient of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award, was named Composer of the Year in 1998 by Musical America, and in 2003 was the recipient of ASCAP’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

Rorem spent two years at Northwestern University before attending The Curtis Institute on scholarship. He later studied with Bernard Wagenaar at Juilliard, earning his B.A. in 1946 and his M.A. in 1948.
Stylistically, Rorem has rarely strayed far from diatonicism, though several of his works do employ other techniques, including altered chords, polytonality, and modified forms of serialism. His works have been commissioned by the Ford Foundation, the Lincoln Center Foundation, the Koussevitsky Foundation, the Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Chicago Symphonies, and the New York Philharmonic. Artists for whom these works were commissioned include Jeffery Khaner (principal flute, Philadelphia Orchestra), David Geringas (solo cellist), and Dame Evelyn Glennie (solo percussionist).

In 2003, on the occasion of his 80th birthday, the international music community joined in celebrating Rorem’s music with various festivals and performances. Highlighting this celebration was “Roremania,” sponsored by The Curtis Institute, which featured many different genres of the composer’s work.
Having enjoyed a career of more than 60 years as a composer, Rorem continues to write and compose, with his most recent diary Facing the Night having hit shelves in 2005 and the world premiere of his opera Our Town in 2006. Currently, Mr. Rorem resides in New York.

Look Down, Fair Moon, by Ned Rorem

Other Notable Works:

Evidence of Things Not Seen (1997), for four solo voices and piano, commissioned by the New York Festival of Song

Our Town (2006), an opera in two acts, commissioned by the Indiana University Opera Theater, and five co-commissioners

String Symphony (1985), for string orchestra, commissioned by the Atlanta Symphony

Name:  Elliot Carter

Born:  1908, New York

Current post:  Full-time composer

Previous post:  N/A

Publisher:  Boosey & Hawkes | G. Schirmer

Suggested listening:  Eight Pieces for Four Timpani

Quote:

Talking about a materialistic thing, I get about 13 times more royalties from Europe than I do from America.

-Elliot Carter

Elliot Carter’s “Canaries” from Eight Pieces for Timpani

Name:  Christopher Rouse

Born:  1949, Baltimore, MD

Current post:  Professor of Composition, The Juilliard School

Previous post:  Professor of Music, Eastman School of Music

Publisher:  Boosey & Hawkes | Schott-Helicon

Suggested listening:  Flute Concerto

Quote:

I got the opportunity to know Mr. Bernstein only in the summer of 1989, although I had admired his work as composer, conductor, and musical evangelist for most of my life. He remains for me a figure of inestimable importance in the history of music, one whose passion for and commitment to his art was insurpassable, and his sudden death in October 1990 robbed us all of an almost superhuman musical giant.

-Christopher Rouse on Leonard Bernstein, discussing the third movement of Rouse’s Trombone Concerto