This official Steve Reich myspace page is operated by colleagues at Steve Reich's music publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, with input and collaboration from the composer himself. Special thanks to Nonesuch for granting us permission to stream these tracks. Enjoy!
Steve Reich was recently called "Americas greatest living composer." (The Village VOICE), ...the most original musical thinker of our time (The New Yorker) and ...among the great composers of the century (The New York Times)
Steve Reich's music has been influential to composers all over the world. He is a leading pioneer of Minimalism, having in his youth broken away from the "establishment" that was serialism. His music is known for steady pulse, repetition, and a fascination with canons; it combines rigorous structures with propulsive rhythms and seductive instrumental colour. It also embraces harmonies of non-Western and American vernacular music (especially jazz) - his studies have included the Gamelan, African drumming (at the University of Ghana), and traditional forms of chanting the Hebrew scriptures.
"I think all music is ethnic music... Every place has its own musical traditions, and this has a lot to do with how things generally sound," he declares.
Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians have each earned him Grammy awards, and his "documentary video opera" works - The Cave and Three Tales - done in collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot - have expanded the boundaries of the operatic medium, and may well set a trend for opera of the future!
"There's just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them" - The Guardian (London)
