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Steve Reich

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Also known as Stephen Reich, Stephen Michael Reich

American composer (born 1936)

Person · Open Library

Works
26

Top works

  • Guerrilla Success
  • Runner
  • WTC 9/11
  • Radio Rewrite
  • Proverb

via Open Library + Wikidata

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
507,517
Total plays
9,959,717

Tags

minimalismcontemporary classicalexperimentalAvant-GardeClassical

Stephen Michael Reich (pronounced RYSHE; born October 3, 1936 in New York City) is an American composer. He is a pioneer of minimalism, although his music has increasingly deviated from a purely minimalist style. Reich's innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns (examples are his early compositions, "It's Gonna Rain" and "Come Out"), and the use of processes to create and explore musical concepts (for instance, "Pendulum Music" and ""Four Organs"). <a href="https://www.la

via Last.fm · Steve Reich

Quotes

  • I discovered that the most interesting music of all was made by simply lining the loops in unison, and letting them slowly shift out of phase with each other...
  • ...in serial music, the series itself is seldom audible... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one in the same thing.
  • What I don't want to do is to go and buy a bunch of exotic-looking drums and set up an Afrikanische Musik in New York City.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
( 1936-10-03 ) October 3, 1936 (age 89) , New York City , New York, U.S.
Era
Contemporary
Notable work
Piano Phase Clapping Music Drumming Music for 18 Musicians Different Trains Three Tales WTC 9/11
Website
stevereich .com

via Wikipedia infobox

~36 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Stephen Michael Reich (/raɪʃ/ RYSHE; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay "Music as a Gradual Process" by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." For example, his early works experiment with phase shifting, in which one or more repeated phrases plays slower or faster than the others, causing it to go "out of phase." This creates new musical patterns in a perceptible flow.

His innovations include using tape loops to create phasing patterns, as on the early compositions It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), and the use of simple, audible processes, as on Pendulum Music (1968) and Four Organs (1970). Works like Drumming (1971) and Music for 18 Musicians (1976), both considered landmarks of minimalism and important influences on experimental music, rock, and contemporary electronic music, would help entrench minimalism as a movement. Reich's work took on a darker character in the 1980s with the introduction of historical themes as well as themes from his Jewish heritage, notably Different Trains (1988).

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Steve Reich” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.