Steve Reich
b. 1936
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 cantor forms for 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' earned him a Grammy for Best Contemporary Composition, and his "documentary video opera" works - 'The Cave'and 'Three Tales' - 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)
Recommended Listening:
Triple Quartet, Different Trains, Electric Counterpoint, Duet
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