Reich performing clapping music in

2006
Steve Reich
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stephen Michael Reich (/ra/;
[1]
born October 3, 1936) is an
American composer who, along with La Monte Young, Terry
Riley, and Philip Glass, pioneered minimal music in the mid to
late 1960s.
[2][3][4]
His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing
patterns (for example, his early compositions It's Gonna Rain
and 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-winning Different
Trains.
Reich's style of composition influenced many composers and groups. Writing in the The Guardian music
critic Andrew Clements described Reich as one of "a handful of living composers who can legitimately
claim to have altered the direction of musical history".
[5]
The American composer and critic Kyle Gann
has said Reich "may...be considered, by general acclamation, America's greatest living composer."
[6]
On January 25, 2007, Reich was named 2007 recipient of the Polar Music Prize with jazz saxophonist
Sonny Rollins. On April 20, 2009, Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music recognizing
Double Sextet, first performed in Richmond March 26, 2008. The citation called it "a major work that
displays an ability to channel an initial burst of energy into a large-scale musical event, built with
masterful control and consistently intriguing to the ear."
[7]
Contents
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 1960s
2.2 1970s
2.3 1980s
2.4 From 1990
3 Influence
4 Recent projects
5 Works
5.1 Music
5.2 Selected discography
5.2 Selected discography
5.3 Books
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links
Early life
Reich was born in New York City to the Broadway lyricist June Sillman and Leonard Reich. 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 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
minored in music and 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 (1995) and You Are
(variations) (2006).
For a year following graduation, Reich studied composition privately with Hall Overton before he
enrolled at Juilliard to work with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti (19581961). Subsequently
he attended Mills College in Oakland, California, where he studied with Luciano Berio and Darius
Milhaud (19611963) and earned a master's degree in composition. At Mills, Reich composed Melodica
for melodica and tape, which appeared in 1986 on the three-LP release Music from Mills.
[8]
Reich worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center along with Pauline Oliveros, Ramon Sender,
Morton Subotnick, and Terry Riley.
[9]
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.
Career
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.
[10]
Reich
also composed film soundtracks for Plastic Haircut, Oh Dem Watermelons, and Thick Pucker, three
films by 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 tunes as its
basis, and used repeated phrasing together in a large five-part 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 (1966) uses similarly manipulated recordings of a single spoken line given by
Daniel Hamm, one of the falsely accused Harlem Six, who was severely injured by police.
[11]
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 bruises 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.
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 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.
A similar, lesser known example of this so-called 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 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 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
maracas playing a fast eighth note pulse, while the four organs stress certain eighth notes using an 11th
chord. This work therefore dealt with 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 Balinese gamelan in Seattle. From his African
experience, as well as A. M. Jones's Studies in African Music about the music of the Ewe people, Reich
drew inspiration for his 90-minute piece 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 (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 Music for 18 Musicians. This piece involved many new ideas, although it
also hearkened back to earlier pieces. It is based on a cycle of eleven chords introduced at the beginning
(called "Pulses"), followed by a small section of music based on each chord ("Sections I-XI"), and
finally a return to the original cycle ("Pulses"). This was Reich's first attempt at writing for larger
ensembles. 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".
[12]
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.

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.
[13]

In 1974 Reich published the book Writings About Music, containing essays on his philosophy,
aesthetics, and musical projects written between 1963 and 1974. An updated and much more extensive
collection, Writings On Music (19652000), 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 (1981), Hebrew for psalms, 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 clarinets, six percussion (playing small tuned tambourines without jingles, clapping, maracas,
marimba, vibraphone and crotales), two electronic organs, two violins, viola, cello and double bass, with
amplified voices, strings, and winds. A setting of texts from psalms 19:25 (19:14 in Christian
Pat Metheny "Electric Counterpoint III
Fast" (1989)
25 seconds of "Electric Counterpoint III
Fast" performed by Pat Metheny.
Composed by Steve Reich. From
"Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint"
(http://www.discogs.com/release/108357)
album.
Problems playing this file? See media help.
translations), 34:1315 (34:1214), 18:2627 (18:2526), and 150:46, 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.
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
19391941 with the very different trains being
used to transport contemporaneous European
children to their deaths under 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 responseone of the few adequate artistic responses in any mediumto the
Holocaust", and he credited the piece with earning Reich a place among the great composers of the 20th
century.
[14]
From 1990
In 1993, Reich collaborated with his wife, the video artist Beryl Korot, on an opera, The Cave, which
explores the roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam through the words of Israelis, Palestinians, and
Americans, 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.
Reich and Korot collaborated again on the opera Three Tales, which concerns the Hindenburg disaster,
the testing of nuclear weapons 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 (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 Bartk's and Alfred Schnittke's
string quartets, and Michael Gordon's Yo Shakespeare.
[15]
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 Komponistenportrt of the
Rheingau Musik Festival in 2002.
In an interview with The Guardian, Reich stated that he continued to follow this direction with his piece
Double Sextet (2007), which was commissioned by eighth blackbird, an American ensemble consisting
of the instrumental quintet (flute, clarinet, violin or viola, cello and piano) of Schoenberg's piece Pierrot
Lunaire (1912) plus percussion. Reich states that he was thinking about Stravinsky's Agon (1957) as a
model for the instrumental writing.
0:00 MENU
Reich was awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, on April 20, 2009, for Double Sextet.
[16]
December 2010 Nonesuch Records and Indaba Music held a community remix contest in which 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," he said. 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.
[17]
In May 2011 Steve Reich received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of
Music.
[18]
Influence
Reich's style of composition has influenced many other composers and musical groups, including 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, Michael Gordon, and Julia Wolfe),
and numerous indie rock musicians including songwriter Sufjan Stevens
[19][20]
and instrumental
ensembles Tortoise,
[21][22][23]
The Mercury Program (themselves influenced by Tortoise),
[24]
and
Godspeed You! Black Emperor (who titled an unreleased song "Steve Reich").
[25]
John Adams commented, "He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride."
[26]
He has also influenced visual artists such as Bruce Nauman, and many notable choreographers have
made dances to his music, Eliot Feld, Ji Kylin, 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.
[27]
In 1999 the album Reich Remixed featured "re-mixes" of a number of Reich's works by
various electronic dance-music producers, such as DJ Spooky, Kurtis Mantronik, Ken Ishii, and Coldcut
amongst others.
[27][28]
Reich often cites Protin, J.S. Bach, Debussy, Bartk, and Stravinsky as composers whom he admires
and who greatly influenced him when he was young.
[29]
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."
[30]
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 has also stated that he admires the music of the band Radiohead, which led to his
composition Radio Rewrite.
[31]
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 was premiered in March 2011 by the Kronos Quartet, at
Duke University, North Carolina, USA.
On March 5, 2013 the London Sinfonietta, conducted by Brad Lubman, at the Royal Festival Hall in
London gave the world premiere of Radio Rewrite (for ensemble with 11 players), inspired by the music
of Radiohead. The programme also included Double Sextet (for ensemble with 12 players), Clapping
Music, for two people and four hands (featuring Reich himself), Electric Counterpoint, with electric
guitar by Mats Bergstrom accompanied by a layered soundtrack, as well as two of Reich's small
ensemble pieces, one for acoustic instruments, the other for electric instruments and tape.
[32]
Works
Music
Soundtrack for 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, tape (1966)
Melodica, for melodica and tape (1966)
Reed Phase, for soprano saxophone or any other reed instrument and tape, or three reed
instruments (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)
[33]
Four Organs for four electric organs and maracas (1970)
Phase Patterns for four electric organs (1970)
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 (197476)
Music for a Large Ensemble (1978)
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 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 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 for four voices, ensemble and video (1993, with Beryl Korot)
Duet for two violins and string ensemble (1993)
Nagoya Marimbas for two marimbas (1994)
City Life for amplified ensemble (1995)
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 womens voices and 2 tamborims (1999)
Three Tales for video projection, five voices and ensemble (19982002, 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)
Finishing the Hat for two pianos (2011)
Radio Rewrite for ensemble (2012)
Quartet for two vibraphones and two pianos (2013)
Selected discography
Drumming. Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: Deutsche Grammophon and Nonesuch)
So Percussion (Cantaloupe)
Music for 18 Musicians. Steve Reich and Musicians (Two recordings: 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)
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 Grard (Catapult)
Phase to Face, a film documentary about Steve Reich by Eric Darmon & Franck Mallet
(EuroArts) DVD (http://www2.euroarts.com/artikel/dvd/?id=005812_steve_reich_phase_to_face)
Books
Writings About Music (1974), Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, ISBN 0-814-
7735-83
Writings On Music (19652000) (2002), ISBN 0-195-1117-10
See also
Minimalist music
Steve Reich and Musicians
Notes
1. ^ "Say How? A Pronunciation Guide to Names of Public Figures"
(http://www.loc.gov/nls/other/sayhow.html#r). National Library Service. May 2006. Retrieved October 15,
2009. See also here [1] (http://iowapublicradio.org/dictionary/errata.htm#R) and here (sound clip)
(http://download.itv.com/southbankshow/reich.m4a).
2. ^ Mertens, W. (1983), American Minimal Music, Kahn & Averill, London, (p.11).
3. ^ Michael Nyman, writing in the preface of Mertens' book refers to the style as "so called minimal music"
(Mertens p.8).
4. ^ "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,
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)
5. ^ "Radio 3 Programmes Composer of the Week, Steve Reich (b. 1936), Episode 1"
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00vct73). BBC. October 25, 2010. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
6. ^ Gann, Kyle (July 13, 1999). "Grand Old Youngster" (http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-07-
13/music/grand-old-youngster). The Village Voice. Retrieved September 27, 2008.
7. ^ "The 2009 Pulitzer Prize Winners: Music" (http://www.pulitzer.org/citation/2009-Music). The Pulitzer
Prizes. Retrieved October 16, 2011. With short biography and Double Sextet data including Composer's
Notes.
8. ^ Music from Mills (http://www.allmusic.com/album/r202182) at AllMusic
9. ^ Bernstein, David (2008). The San Francisco Tape Music Center. University of California Press. ISBN 978-
0-520-24892-2.
10. ^ Malcolm Ball on Steve Reich (http://www.oliviermessiaen.org/malcolmball/reich.htm)
11. ^ "A Report from Occupied Territory JAMES BALDWIN (1924-1987)"
(http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/Occupied-Territory-Baldwin1966.htm). mindfully.org. Retrieved 28 April
2013.
12. ^ Liner notes for Music for a Large Ensemble
13. ^ Schwarz, K. Robert. Minimalists, Phaidon Press, 1996, p.84 and p.86.
14. ^ Taruskin, Richard (August 24, 1997). "A Sturdy Musical Bridge to the 21st Century"
(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?
res=9C0CE4D91F3FF937A1575BC0A961958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all). The New York Times.
Retrieved September 27, 2008.
15. ^ "From New York to Vermont: Conversation with Steve Reich" (http://www.stevereich.com/articles/NY-
VT.html). Stevereich.com. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
16. ^ "2009 Pulitzer Prizes for Letters, Drama and Music," The New York Times, April 20, 2009.
17. ^ "Steve Reich Remix Contest 2x5 Movement 3" (http://www.indabamusic.com/opportunities/steve-reich-
remix-contest). Indaba Music. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
18. ^ "Commencement 2011 | New England Conservatory" (http://necmusic.edu/commencement-2011).
Necmusic.edu. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
19. ^ Wise, Brian (2006). "Steve Reich @ 70 on WNYC" (http://www.wnyc.org/music/articles/66792). WNYC.
Retrieved September 27, 2008.
20. ^ Joana de Belm (November 12, 2006). "O passado e o presente de Steve Reich no Porto"
(http://dn.sapo.pt/2006/11/12/artes/o_passado_presente_steve_reich_porto.html). Dirio de Notcias (in
Portuguese). Retrieved September 27, 2008.
21. ^ Hutlock, Todd (September 1, 2006). "Tortoise A Lazarus Taxon"
(http://web.archive.org/web/20060917055800/http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/tortoise/a-lazarus-
taxon.htm). Stylus Magazine. Archived from the original (http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/tortoise/a-
lazarus-taxon.htm) on September 17, 2006. Retrieved September 27, 2008.
22. ^ Ratliff, Ben (March 23, 1998). "TNT : Tortoise : Review"
(http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/230069/review/5941937/tnt). Rolling Stone. Retrieved
September 27, 2008.
23. ^ "Performers: Tortoise (Illinois)"
(http://www.guelphjazzfestival.com/2008_season/performers/tortoise_illinois). Guelph Jazz Festival. 2008.
Retrieved September 27, 2008.
References
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.
Reich, Steve; Hillier, Paul (Editor) (April 1, 2002). Writings on Music, 19652000. USA: Oxford
University Press. p. 272. ISBN 0-19-511171-0.
Reich, Steve (1974). Writings About Music. Halifax: Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and
Design. p. 78. ISBN 0-919616-02-X.
Further reading
D.J. Hoek. Steve Reich: A Bio-Bibliography. Greenwood Press, 2002.
K. Robert Schwarz. Minimalists. Phaidon Press, 1996.
External links
Official website (http://www.stevereich.com/)
24. ^ Stratton, Jeff (May 10, 2001). "We Have Liftoff" (http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/2001-05-
10/music/we-have-liftoff). Broward-Palm Beach New Times. Retrieved September 27, 2008.
25. ^ "sad" (http://brainwashed.com/godspeed/music.html). Brainwashed.com. Retrieved October 16, 2011.
26. ^ 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 "Steve Reich Website"
(http://www.stevereich.com/). Retrieved January 31, 2010.
27. ^
a

b
Emmerson, S. (2007), Music, Electronic Media, and Culture, Ashgate, Adlershot, p.68.
28. ^ Reich Remixed: (http://www.discogs.com/release/27570) album track listing at www.discogs.com
29. ^ "Questions from Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker & Answers from"
(http://www.stevereich.com/articles/Anne_Teresa_de_Keersmaeker_intervies.html). Steve Reich. Retrieved
October 16, 2011.
30. ^ "Steve Reich Interview with Gabrielle Zuckerman, July 2002"
(http://musicmavericks.publicradio.org/features/interview_reich.html). Musicmavericks.publicradio.org.
Retrieved October 16, 2011.
31. ^ Petridis, Alexis (February 28, 2013). "Steve Reich on Schoenberg, Coltrane and Radiohead"
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/mar/01/steve-reich-schoenberg-coltrane-radiohead). The Guardian.
Retrieved March 1, 2013.
32. ^ "Radio Rewrite, Double Sextet" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r0zyf). bbc.co.uk. 2013. Retrieved
March 5, 2013.
33. ^ *Reich, Steve (1975). Writings on Music (New ed.). USA: New York University Press. pp. 1213. ISBN 0-
8147-7357-5.
Wikiquote has quotations
related to: Steve Reich
Wikimedia Commons has
media related to Steve
Reich.
London Steve Reich Ensemble (http://www.lsre.co.uk/) (official)
(French) A biography
(http://brahms.ircam.fr/composers/composer/2700/) of Steve
Reich, from IRCAM's website.
Music and the Holocaust Different Trains
(http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/memory/memorials0/europe-
during-war0/)
Interviews
A Steve Reich Interview with Christopher Abbot
(http://www.vitaminic.co.uk/vita/specials/steve_reich/part1.jsp)
Two interviews with Steve Reich (http://www.bruceduffie.com/reich.html) by Bruce Duffie (October 1985 &
November 1995)
Steve Reich Interview (7/98) with Richard Kessler (http://www.newmusicbox.org/archive/firstperson/reich/)
Time and Motion: an interview with Steve Reich, by Robert Davidson, 1999
(http://www.topologymusic.com/index.php/time-and-motion-an-interview-with-steve-reich/)
A Steve Reich Interview with Marc Weidenbaum, 1999 (http://www.disquiet.com/stevereich-script.html)
"Drumming" Interview & analysis (http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20000717.atc.06.rmm), selected as one
of the NPR 100 (http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/vote/list100.html) most important musical works of
the 20th century. RealAudio format, timing: 12:46, July 2000
In Conversation with Steve Reich, by Molly Sheridan, June 2002
(http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=3810)
Steve Reich and Beryl Korot interviewed by David Allenby, 2002 (http://www.ensemble-
modern.com/english/kritiken/archiv/i-a021.htm)
An interview in The Guardian, January 2, 2004
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/homeentertainment/story/0,,1114656,00.html)
The Next Phase: Steve Reich talks to Richard Kessler About Redefinition and Renewal, 2004
(http://www.newmusicbox.org/page.nmbx?id=63fp00)
"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://adventuresinmusic.biz/Archives/Interviews/stevereich.htm)
A Steve Reich Interview with Hermann Kretzschmar on You Are (Variations), 2005 (http://www.ensemble-
modern.com/english/kritiken/archiv/i-a024.htm)
The beaten track, an interview with Reich, by Andrew Clements, The Guardian, October 28, 2005
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/feature/0,,1602076,00.html)
An interview with Steve Reich on RTE television, National Broadcaster in Ireland, May 29, 2006
(http://www.rte.ie/tv/theview/archive/20060529.html)
An interview with Steve Reich on musicOMH.com, October 2006
(http://www.musicomh.com/classical_features/reich_1006.htm)
Interview: Steve Reich
(http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/39540/Interview_Interview_Steve_Reich), by Joshua Klein,
November 22, 2006.
"Steve Reich at 70" (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6209213) 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)
"Video Interview (Feb. 2006)" (http://mediatheque.cite-musique.fr/masc/?
url=/MediaComposite/CMDI/CMDI000001900/default.htm), Cit de la musique, Paris, France
"Two Arts Beating As One" Interviews with Steve Reich and his wife Beryl Korot with video and audio
clips, May 2009 (http://www.flypmedia.com/issues/29/#8/1)
"Unexplored terrain" (http://www.sfbg.com/2013/03/12/unexplored-terrain?page=0,0) Composer Steve Reich
draws out Radiohead's melodic fragments for new work - Interview with Steve Reich about his new work,
March 2013
Listening
Steve Reich at UC Berkeley University Museum (http://radiom.org/detail.php?omid=C.1971.03.14)
(November 7, 1970) Streaming audio
Steve Reich at the Whitney (http://www.whitney.org/www/exhibition/stevereich.jsp) "October 15, 2006"
MP3
Reich speaks about Daniel Variations for the South Bank Show
(http://download.itv.com/southbankshow/reich.m4a)
Others
Classical Music Pages: Steve Reich biography (http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/reich.html)
(French) A biography (http://brahms.ircam.fr/composers/composer/2700/) of Steve Reich, from IRCAM's
website.
A Description/documentary of Steve Reich (http://www.duke.edu/~dks3/Reich/) from Duke University,
includes sound samples and quotes
EST: (http://media.hyperreal.org/zines/est/articles/reich.html) Steve Reich by Roger Sutherland
Music as a Gradual Process (http://www.columbia.edu/ccnmtl/draft/ben/feld/mod1/readings/reich.html) by
Steve Reich
Steve Reich: You Are (Variations) premiere in LA (October 2004)
(http://www.boosey.com/pages/cr/news/further_info.asp?NewsID=10960&LangID=)
New York Fetes Composer Steve Reich at 70 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=6155645) from NPR
Fascinating rhythm. Celebrating Steve Reich.
(http://www.newyorker.com/critics/music/articles/061113crmu_music) Article by Alex Ross from The New
Yorker.
Steve Reich & Sonny Rollins winners of the Polar Music Prize for 2007
(http://www.polarmusicprize.se/newSite/press200701.shtml) Press release of Polar Prize announcement
Steve Reich (http://lccn.loc.gov/n81022275) at Library of Congress Authorities, with 104 catalog
records
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steve_Reich&oldid=623925145"
Categories: Steve Reich 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers
Postmodern composers Minimalist composers Opera composers American classical composers
Jewish American classical composers Nonesuch Records artists Grammy Award-winning artists
ECM artists Pulitzer Prize for Music winners
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Jewish classical composers
Juilliard School alumni Cornell University alumni 1936 births Living people
Guggenheim Fellows Pupils of Darius Milhaud Pupils of Vincent Persichetti
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