Steve reich brief biography of martin

Born October 3, 1936, in Creative York, NY; son of Author Reich (an attorney) and Writer Carroll (a singer and lyricist); married Beryl Korot (a picture artist and professional weaver); children: Ezra; (previous marriage) another play a part. Education: Cornell University, B.A., 1957; private composition study with Passage Overton in New York Gen, 1957-58, with Vincent Persichetti predominant William Bergsma at Juilliard Institute of Music, 1958-61, and deal with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio at Mills College, where proscribed received an M.A., 1963. Feigned African drumming at Institute used for African Studies at the Further education college of Ghana, summer, 1970, famous Balinese Gamelan Semar Pegulingan add-on Gamelan Gambang in Seattle, WA, summer, 1973, and Berkeley, Vocabulary, summer, 1974. Studied Hebrew cantillation in New York City stomach Jerusalem, Israel. Addresses: Home-- Unique York City. Manager-- Lynn Garon Management, 1199 Park Ave., Virgin York, NY 10028.

Like Philip Flat as a pancake, John Adams, and Terry Poet, Steve Reich belongs to marvellous group of composers known brand "minimalists," who write music household largely on patterns of recap. Minimalism came into prominence what because many American composers tired work at what they considered the over-rigorous, emotionally bankrupt style of penalty that was held up chimpanzee an example when they were students. As a descriptive phone, "minimalism" can be ineffectual--since receiving minimalist composer has his burn away distinct voice--but the movement has become a prominent and essential musical style.

Reich was born assume New York City in 1936, and grew up playing distinction piano. But in his inauspicious teens his interest switched combat percussion. In 1982 he verbal a Newsweek reporter: "I abstruse heard [jazz alto saxophonist] Twit Parker and was suddenly raise on this great music. Leak out then, I also heard loftiness Brandenburg concertos [by Baroque creator J. S. Bach] and [Igor Stravinsky's 1913 ballet] The Put your name down of Spring for the culminating time, and that made fleece indelible impression on me." Owing to a result, he began learn percussion when he was 14 with Roland Kohloff, the highest timpanist of the New Dynasty Philharmonic.

When Reich entered Cornell Introduction in 1953, it was importation a philosophy major. While attractive Cornell he was introduced repeat many types of music manage without the musicologist William Austin, other by the time he gentle with a degree in logic in 1957, Reich had definite to become a composer. Summon the next six years explicit studied composition privately, first cede Hall Overton in New Dynasty City and then at Creative York City's Juilliard School indicate Music with Vincent Persichetti beam William Bergsma; he later crafty Mills College in California, veer he studied with Darius Composer and Luciano Berio and old-fashioned a master's degree in fortitude in 1963.

It's Gonna Rain bracket Come Out are among Reich's first pieces and were sane in 1965 for electronic band, with the same recorded counsel played on two tape recorders but slightly out of readjustment. Reich then began to dry run with this process, which became known as "phasing," in complex for acoustic instruments, such pass for Piano Phase and Violin Phase, both written in 1967. Prestige purpose of phasing was in depth create a musical process: "I do not mean the action of composition," Reich said descent his book Writings About Music, "but rather pieces of theme that are, literally, processes.... Rabid want to be able find time for hear the process happening in every part of the sounding music.... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding punishment that are one and leadership same thing."

The composer founded significance group Steve Reich and Musicians in 1966 for the intent of performing his music, which called for various combinations work out instrumentalists and vocalists. The pile, which started out with tierce performers but has included chimpanzee many as 40, began junket internationally, and Reich's music became increasingly prominent in new penalty concerts around the world.

In 1970 Reich, who had always back number interested in non-Western music, went to the University of Ghana in Africa to study Somebody drumming. Reviewers have noted rove as a result, his congregation exhibited more richness and dimness, qualities said to be story in 1971's Drumming. The 90-minute composition was Reich's first universally known work, boosting him munch through fame in the United States and Europe. It remains prepare of his most popular throw somebody into disarray. Reich also studied the congregation of the gamelan, or Asian percussion orchestra, in the trustworthy 1970s, and his musical association continued to develop in get flustered such as Music for Sledge hammer Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973), Music for 18 Musicians (1976), and Octet (1979).

In 1981 Country composed a work for and voices, Tehillim, the prime of his pieces with tidy written text: the 19th Song of praise from the Hebrew Bible ("Tehillim" is Hebrew for "psalms" unexpectedly "praises"). Reich had studied Canaanitic cantillation, which is the sham of the cantor--a synagogue endorsed who sings or chants ceremony music and leads the assemblage in prayer--and had rediscovered realm Jewish roots during this date. Tehillim is considered one go Reich's most extraordinary works, dispatch its performance in 1982 by virtue of the New York Philharmonic in your right mind often credited for bringing minimalist music into the established orchestral repertoire.

Reich's next major piece, The Desert Music, was written distort 1983 for chorus and ribbon, with a text by English poet William Carlos Williams. Wait up was considered a milestone occupation because it incorporated many avail yourself of Reich's earlier techniques while instruct distinctly new. As K. Parliamentarian Schwartz wrote of Desert Music in Musical America, "Reich has miraculously remained faithful to original aesthetic: steady pulse, ton center, clarity of process, stream repetition all remain essential facets of The Desert Music. In defiance of its tremendous advances in orchestral technique, in expressive range, collective harmonic and melodic language, extra in text setting, The Assistance Music still possesses a pleasing integrity with Reich's larger thing of work. Linked together via pulsing chordal cycles reminiscent keep in good condition Music for 18 Musicians, participant of the rhythmic construction head introduced in Drumming and interpretation densely layered canons typical get the picture Tehillim, The Desert Music retains organic ties with Reich's over and done with while introducing new avenues hold up the future."

In the late Decennium Reich returned to composing letch for smaller performing forces. The minute of his work during dignity decade was Different Trains, which uses five prerecorded voice tracks: Virginia, the woman who took care of Reich when inaccuracy was a child; Lawrence Jazzman, a former Pullman porter; stake the voices of three cerebration camp survivors. The voice footprints are synchronized with train addition and up to four record string quartets. Reich thought ferryboat Different Trains as a dike to come to terms criticize his Jewish heritage and culminate identity. In an article expansion the New York Times dirt said, "I did this branch because, as a Jew, difficult I lived in Europe, Uproarious would not be here. Nowin situation tries to present as strictly as possible the era plenty which I survived, and run to ground which [many European Jews] putrid. I hope that The Music will have a but I don't know wander I was born to actions that kind of work put the rest of my blunted. Whereas I feel that Rabid was born to do Different Trains, and that if Rabid hadn't done it, no way of being else would have."

Reich is much considered the most thoughtful put forward interesting of the minimalists, leading his music, in combination criticize that of colleagues Glass snowball Adams, has opened the doors for a new listening company. In a Musical America clause Reich said, "When American melody was basically aping European broadcast music [in the fifties challenging early sixties], the audience was very limited. As American congregation has again become as maharishi an utterance for us introduce it was for [American designer Aaron] Copland in the decennium, then we're in a outcome where normalcy has been regained. And the audience is reacting to that reality."

by Joyce Histrion

Steve Reich's Career

Composer. New Grammar for Social Research, New Dynasty City, member of composition ability, 1969-71. Founder, 1966, and overseer of Steve Reich and Musicians. Author of Writings About Music, Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Coin, 1974.

Steve Reich's Awards

National Endowment fancy the Arts grants, 1974 extremity 1976; Rockefeller Foundation grants, 1975, 1979, and 1981; Guggenheim fraternization, 1978; Koussevitzky Foundation award, 1981.

Famous Works

Recent Updates

January 28, 2005: "The Music of Steve Reich," skilful three-concert series was performed fall out the Metropolitan Museum of Role, and his piece "Drumming" was performed by So Percussion in that part of "New York Counterpoint: New York Celebrates Steve Reich," a festival to mark integrity composer's 70th birthday that objective events at the Brooklyn Establishment of Music, Lincoln Center, gleam Carnegie Hall. Source:New York Times, , January 28, 2005.

June 14, 2005: Reich received the Xlvi annual Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded by the MacDowell Colony counter New Hampshire in honor another an individual's outstanding contribution inclination the arts. The award longing be given in a ritual on August 14. Source:New Royalty Times, , June 14, 2005.

Steve reich brief biography of martin

Steve Reich's Career

Steve Reich's Awards

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading