Home » Jazz Musicians » Steve Reich

Steve Reich

From his early taped-speech pieces It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) to his and video artist Beryl Korot’s digital video opera Three Tales (2002), Steve Reich’s path has embraced not only aspects of Western Classical music, but the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz.

Born in New York and raised there and in California, Mr. Reich graduated with honors in philosophy from Cornell University in 1957. For the next two years, he studied composition with Hall Overton, and from 1958 to 1961 he studied at The Juilliard School of Music with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. Mr. Reich received his MA in Music from Mills College in 1963, where he worked with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud.

During the summer of 1970, with the help of a grant from the Institute for International Education, Mr. Reich studied drumming at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra. In 1973 and 1974, he studied Balinese gamelan semar pegulingan and gamelan gambang at the American Society for Eastern Arts in Seattle and Berkeley, California. From 1976 to 1977, he studied the traditional forms of cantillation (chanting) of the Hebrew Scriptures in New York and Jerusalem.

In 1966, Mr. Reich founded his own ensemble of three musicians, which rapidly grew to 18 members or more. Since 1971, Steve Reich and Musicians have frequently toured the world and have the distinction of performing to sold-out houses at venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall and the Bottom Line cabaret.

Mr. Reich’s 1988 piece Different Trains marked a new compositional method, rooted in It’s Gonna Rain and Come Out, in which speech recordings generate the musical material for musical instruments. In 1990, Mr. Reich received a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition for Different Trains as recorded by the Kronos Quartet on the Nonesuch label.

In June 1997, in celebration of Mr. Reich’s 60th birthday, Nonesuch released a 10-CD retrospective box set of Mr. Reich’s compositions, featuring several newly recorded and remastered works. He won a second Grammy Award in 1999 for his piece Music for 18 Musicians, also on Nonesuch. In July 1999, a major retrospective of Mr. Reich’s work was presented by the Lincoln Center Festival. Earlier, in 1988, the South Bank Centre in London mounted a similar series of retrospective concerts.

In 2000, he was awarded the Schuman Prize from Columbia University, the Montgomery Fellowship from Dartmouth College, the Regent’s Lectureship at the University of California at Berkeley, and an honorary doctorate from the California Institute of the Arts; he was also named Composer of the Year by Musical America.

The Richness of Reich's Repetition

by Scott Gudell
October 25, 2022

Almost as in deference to the minimalist approach of composer Steve Reich, these two discs distill their titles down to simply Reich / Richter on one and Steve Reich on the other. It's a hint on what's about to come. Reich/Richter Ensemble Intercontemporain Nonesuch Records 2022 Steve Reich, along with other contemporary composers such as Terry Riley and Philip Glass, are the upper echelon of minimalist masters who have defined and shaped ...

Catching Up With

Steve Reich: Humans Love to See Other Humans Play Music

by Nenad Georgievski
April 24, 2021

Steve Reich is one of the most significant composers of the late 20th century. During his lengthy career, he has managed both to provoke and console the music world with his trailblazing works. Drawing on aspects of eighteenth-century classical music, Debussy, Stravinsky, jazz music, ethnic and ritual music including musical occurrences and accidents that happen when one uses electronic devices like tape recorders and samplers, Reich has continually fashioned new musical models that have propelled Western music forward. It is ...

Live Review

Ars Ludi al Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

by Francesca Odilia Bellino
October 19, 2018

Miti di Musica 2018 -Ritmi del Mito. Piccole drammaturgie per percussioni-attori Ars Ludi Museo Archeologico Nazionale--Sala del Toro Farnese Napoli 14.06.2018 Il primo appuntamento della rassegna estiva dell'associazione Alessandro Scarlatti dedicata ai Miti di Musica ospita Ars Ludi, un ensemble di percussioni d'eccezione che lavora da trent'anni sul repertorio contemporaneo. Ospitato nella sala del Toro Farnese, il concerto si è aperto con un evocativo “Marx Lenin Mao Tse Tung," pezzo scritto nel 2016 ...

Album Review

Steve Reich: Pulse/Quartet

Read "Pulse/Quartet" reviewed by Nenad Georgievski

by Nenad Georgievski
January 19, 2018

In 2016, composer Steve Reich celebrated a milestone birthday and to mark the occasion an upward of hundreds of performances of his work were performed at various places around the globe. These performances and celebrations just confirmed the almost unfathomable beauty and timelessness of his oeuvre as they represented 50 years in music. They also confirmed why he is an important part of the contemporary music landscape for many generations and not just in classical music.Apart from revisiting ...

Live Review

Steve Reich @ 80: Music for 18 Musicians

by C. Andrew Hovan
March 29, 2017

Eighth Blackbird & Third Coast Percussion Hill Auditorium Steve Reich @ 80: Music for 18 Musicians Ann Arbor, MI March 18, 2017 When it comes to contemporary classical music and specifically the genre known as minimalism, few composers lay claim to the accolades bestowed on Steve Reich. Celebrating his 80th year on the planet, Reich's works continue to be performed regularly around the world. In addition to concerts revisiting trinkets from his large oeuvre, ...

New York @ Night

Steve Reich Celebration: Repercussion

by Peter Jurew
January 7, 2017

Steve Reich Celebration: Repercussion National Sawdust Brooklyn, NY December 10, 2016 As part of the many celebrations of composer Steve Reich's 80th birthday throughout 2016, the World Music Institute and National Sawdust co-presented a program in December that brought the Ghanaian master, Gideon Alorwoyie, together with the critically-acclaimed Mantra Percussion Ensemble for sixty minutes of riveting music and dance. The back story on this landmark performance begins in the summer ...

Extended Analysis

Steve Reich: The ECM Recordings

by Nenad Georgievski
October 29, 2016

Celebrated as one of the most significant contemporary American composer-musicians of the late 20th century, Steve Reich successfully dismantled the cemented bedrock of Western Music and rebuilt it in surprisingly innovative ways. One of the founders of the Minimalism movement in classical music, he created music that drew on aspects of Balinese, Yemenite, African and Hebrew sounds. In doing so, over the course of 50 years, he continually fashioned new musical models that in return have pushed Western music forward. ...

Recording

Instrumental Bass & Vibes Duo Cliffwalker Can Be Compared To Steve Reich, Philip Glass As Well As Contemporaries Such As Tortoise, Death From Above 1979

Source: Fanatic Promotion
June 12, 2022

“Delightfully teeters on the edge of chaos...” says music discovery blog Independent Clauses in its coverage of “Punching Clocks,” the debut single by Portland-based duo CLIFFWALKER. Punching Clocks is the sort of thing that the word post-rock was made for. It’s rock put in the service of other moods. The interplay of the leads produces the experience of a spy-movie chase scene.” The Portland, Oregon-based instrumental duo of Cliff Hayes (Bass, Keys) and A. Walker Spring (Vibes, Drums, Keys, Guitar), ...
read more

323

Event

Grammy Award Winner Steve Reich, Ethan Iverson, and Others to Discuss the Life and Career of Composer Hall Overton in the Free Program Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts on April 14

Source: Michael Ricci
April 7, 2010

In collaboration with The Jazz Loft Project exhibit, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts welcomes Steve Reich, Joel Sachs, Carman Moore, Ethan Iverson, and Sam Stephenson to discuss famed composer Hall Overton in Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows on Wednesday, April 14 at 6:00 p.m. in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. The New York Public Library for the ...
read more

192

Award / Grant

Pulitzer Prize: Steve Reich

Source: JamBase
April 22, 2009

Steve Reich Wins 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music

Steve Reich The 2009 Pulitzer Prize for “distinguished musical composition by an American" has been awarded to New York composer Steve Reich. Reich won the $10,000 prize for his Double Sextet (Boosey & Hawkes), “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." The piece debuted March 26, 2008 at the University ...
read more

169

Award / Grant

Steve Reich and Sonny Rollins Winners of the 2007 Polar Music Prize

Source: All About Jazz
January 25, 2007

The winners of the Polar Music Prize Award for 2007, were unveiled on Thursday the 25th of January at The Royal Swedish Academy of Music in Stockholm. The Chairman of the Board and Award Committee, Mr. Ake Holmquist, read the Award Committee's citations.

The Steve Reich Citation

The 2007 Polar Music Prize is awarded to the American composer and musician Steve Reich. The award recognizes his unique ability to use repeats, canon technique and minimal variation of patterns to develop ...
read more

Recording

Steve Reich Box Set, "Phases: A Nonesuch Retrospective", Available on September 26, 2006

Source: All About Jazz
July 31, 2006

Nonesuch Releases Box Set of Steve Reich Recordings, Phases: A Nonesuch Retrospective, September 26, to Commemorate Composer's 70th Birthday

Phases timed to coincide with New York City-wide Steve Reich at 70 celebration

“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 [U.K.]

Nonesuch Records, Steve Reich's label since 1985, releases its second box set of his works, Phases: A Nonesuch Retrospective, ...
read more

192

Performance / Tour

Whitney To Present Special Tribute to Steve Reich in October 2006

Source: All About Jazz
July 11, 2006

Culminates Oct. 15 with a 4-hour marathon of seminal Reich works, performed by Alarm Will Sound, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, So Percussion, Tactus and Ransom Wilson “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 (UK) The concerts Steve Reich gave at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1969 and 1978 were among the most important of his early career. ...
read more