Steve reich most famous works
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Biography
Steve Reich, by name of Stephen Michael Reich, (born October 3, 1936, New York, New York, U.S.), American composer who was one of the leading exponents of Minimalism, a style based on repetitions and combinations of simple motifs and harmonies.
Reich was the son of an attorney and a singer-lyricist. He majored in philosophy at Cornell University (1953–57) and then studied composition at the Juilliard School (formerly the Juilliard School of Music) before receiving a master’s degree from Mills College (1963), where his teachers included composers Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio. Reich also played keyboard instruments and percussion. By 1966, when he formed his own ensemble, he was already creating Minimalist compositions.
Like the works of fellow Minimalist Philip Glass, Reich’s compositions rejected the characteristic complexity of mid-20th-century classical harmony and tonality in order to make large-scale works from minimal materials—a single chord
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Hosted by Audio Only VersionTranscript:
Emma Warren
We’ve had Grammy-winners here before and we’ve had legends here at the Red Bull Music Academy, but I don’t think we‘ve ever had a Nobel Prize-winner, let alone a Nobel Prize-winner who also won a Pulitzer Prize.
Steve Reich
Pulitzer Prize. They don’t give Nobels for music, you have to be in science or peace. [laughs]
Emma Warren
I’ll rephrase that then; we’ve never had a Pulitzer Prize-winner. Steve Reich is an American composer, who started off working with tape loops and recorded speech, and made music you’ll be familiar with, things like Drumming and Music for 18 Musicians. Obviously, that was just the beginning, because there’s been a whole lot of music since then. This interview won’t be definitive — we only have an hour or so — but we’re going to make sure there’s lots of time for you to ask questions afterwards. I’m sure you’ll have questions, so please make sure you hold them in your head and have them ready for us at the end. So, I think we should say a very big, warm welcome to Mr Steve Reich. [applause
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by Lauren Vogel Weiss
The New York Times ranked him ‘among the great composers of the century’ and the Village Voice hailed him as ‘America’s greatest living composer.’ This past May he was awarded the Polar Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and last year he received the Praemium Imperiale for Music Award in Tokyo. But Steve Reich is not only a world-renown composer, he is also a percussionist who performs his own music.
When informed of his most recent honor, the PAS Hall of Fame, Reich says he was thrilled. ‘To be included with people like Varèse and Cage, as well as Russell Hartenberger and Bob Becker—the left hand and right hand of my ensemble!—is a real honor, and I am delighted,’ he said.
Does he regard himself as a percussionist who composes? ‘I consider myself a composer first, second, and third,’ he says with a laugh. ‘And then a percussionist. Being around some of the best percussionists in the world has given me a very realistic perspective of where I fit in.’
Born in New York on Octo
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