Steve Reich
Steve Reich recently was hailed as "America's 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). From his early taped speech pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) to the digital video opera Three Tales (2002), 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. "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," states The Guardian (London).
Reich's 1988 piece, Different Trains, in which speech recordings generate the musical material for musical instruments, was hailed by The New York Times as "a work of such astonishing originality that breakthrough seems the only possible description...(It) possesses an absolutely harrowing emotional impact." In 1990, Reich received a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition for Different Trains as recorded by the Kronos Quartet on the Nonesuch label. He won a second Grammy award in 1999 for his piece Music for 18 Musicians, also on the Nonesuch label.
In 2000, Musical America named Reich Composer of the Year. Several noted choreographers- including Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jerome Robbins for the New York City Ballet, Eliot Feld and Alvin Ailey-have created dances to his music. Reich's latest recording, collaboration with video artist Beryl Korot entitled Three Tales, was released on CD and DVD by Nonesuch in August 2003. www.stevereich.com
Cite this record
"Steve Reich." Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2011. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/steve-reich.
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Steve Reich is an American composer whose work ranges from taped speech pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966) to the digital video opera Three Tales (2002); his music draws on Western Classical, non-Western and American vernacular traditions, particularly jazz. Different Trains (1988) uses speech recordings as musical material and earned Reich the 1990 Grammy for Best Contemporary Composition as recorded by the Kronos Quartet on Nonesuch; he won a second Grammy in 1999 for Music for 18 Musicians. In 2000 Musical America named him Composer of the Year; Three Tales, made with video artist Beryl Korot, was released on CD and DVD by Nonesuch in August 2003.
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Last modified 18 June 2011