Steve Reich facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Steve Reich
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Reich at the Holland Festival, c. June 1976
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| Born | October 3, 1936 New York City, U.S.
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| Era | Contemporary |
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Notable work
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Stephen Michael Reich (born October 3, 1936) is a famous American composer. He is known for being a leader in a style of music called minimal music in the 1960s. Minimal music often uses short, repeating musical ideas that change very slowly over time.
Reich's music often features repeating patterns and sounds that gradually shift. He once said he likes to "hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." This means you can hear how the music is being built and changed as you listen. For example, in some of his early pieces, he experimented with "phase shifting." This is when two or more identical musical phrases play at slightly different speeds. This causes them to go "out of phase" with each other. As they shift, new and interesting musical patterns appear.
His new ideas included using tape loops to create these shifting patterns. You can hear this in early works like It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966). He also used simple, clear musical processes, like in Pendulum Music (1968). Pieces like Drumming (1971) and Music for 18 Musicians (1976) are considered very important in minimal music. They also influenced experimental music, rock, and modern electronic music. In the 1980s, Reich's music became a bit more serious. He started including historical themes and ideas from his Jewish background, especially in Different Trains (1988).
Many modern composers and music groups, especially in the United States and Great Britain, have been influenced by Reich's unique style. Some people even say that Steve Reich is one of the few living composers who has truly changed the direction of music history.
Contents
Early Life and Musical Journey
Reich was born in New York City. His parents were June Sillman, a Broadway lyricist, and Leonard Reich. When he was one year old, his parents divorced. He then spent his time living in both New York and California. He also has a half-brother, the writer Jonathan Carroll.
As a child, Steve took piano lessons. He grew up listening to popular music of the time. He didn't hear much music written before 1750 or after 1900. When he was 14, he started to study music more seriously. He discovered older music from the Baroque period and also modern music from the 20th century. To learn jazz, Reich studied drums with Roland Kohloff.
He went to Cornell University and studied music as a minor. In 1957, he earned a degree in Philosophy. Later, he even used ideas from the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his music, like in Proverb (1995).
After college, Reich studied music composition privately for a year. Then, he went to Juilliard from 1958 to 1961. He continued his studies at Mills College in California from 1961 to 1963. There, he earned a master's degree in composition. While at Mills, he created Melodica for melodica and tape.
Reich also worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center. He helped with the first performance of Terry Riley's famous piece In C. He even suggested using the steady eighth-note pulse that is now a key part of that music.
Exploring New Sounds
Music Experiments in the 1960s
In the 1960s, Reich began to experiment with music. He was interested in how sounds could change and repeat. He even composed music for films like Plastic Haircut (1963) and Oh Dem Watermelons (1965). His film music often used tape collages and repeating phrases.
Reich was inspired by fellow minimalist composer Terry Riley. Riley's In C uses simple musical patterns that are slightly offset in time. This creates a slowly changing, unified sound. Reich used this idea in his first major work, It's Gonna Rain. This piece, from 1965, used a small part of a recorded speech. Reich put the words onto several tape loops. These loops slowly moved out of phase with each other, creating new sounds.
Another piece, Come Out (1966), is 13 minutes long. It uses recordings of a single spoken line. Reich recorded a small part of the line, "come out to show them," on two separate channels. At first, they play together. But they quickly start to slip out of sync. This creates a repeating, echoing sound. The two voices then split into four, then eight, and so on. Eventually, the actual words become hard to understand. Only the rhythm and tone of the speech remain.
In Melodica (1966), Reich used his phase shifting idea with a musical instrument. He recorded a simple melody played on a melodica. Then, he put the recording on two separate channels. By slowly moving them out of phase, he created a complex, interlocking melody. This piece was the last one Reich made only with tape. He saw it as a step from tape music to music for instruments.
Reich then tried to use this "phasing" technique in live performances. One example is Piano Phase (1967), for two pianos. In this piece, two pianists repeat a fast, twelve-note melody. One player keeps a steady beat. The other player speeds up just a tiny bit until their parts line up again, but slightly off. Then the second player goes back to the original speed. This cycle of speeding up and locking in continues throughout the piece. Violin Phase (1967) uses similar ideas.
Another example of his "process music" is Pendulum Music (1968). This piece uses the sound of microphones swinging over loudspeakers. As they swing, they create feedback sounds.
Reich also wanted to create phasing effects using only the human body. He found that simple phasing didn't quite fit. Instead, he composed Clapping Music (1972). In this piece, two performers clap a repeating pattern. One performer keeps the same pattern. The other performer shifts their pattern by one beat every 12 bars. They keep shifting until they are back in sync again.
Four Organs (1970) explores the idea of making sounds longer without changing their pitch. In this piece, maracas play a fast, steady beat. Four organs hold a long, sustained chord. This work focuses on repetition and small rhythmic changes. Four Organs was important because it was one of Reich's first pieces performed in a large, traditional concert setting.
New Directions in the 1970s
In 1970, Reich traveled to Ghana in Africa. He studied polyrhythmic music with a master drummer named Gideon Alorwoyie. This experience, along with his studies of African music, inspired his long piece Drumming (1970–1971). This piece is for a nine-person percussion group, with female voices and a piccolo.
Around this time, Reich formed his own music group, Steve Reich and Musicians. He started to focus more on composing and performing with them. His group was the main one to play his music for many years. They are still active today.
After Drumming, Reich moved beyond just "phase shifting." He started writing more complex pieces. He explored other musical ideas, like augmentation. This is when musical phrases are stretched out in time. In 1973 and 1974, he studied Balinese gamelan music. This influenced his piece Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973). Another work from this time is Six Pianos (1973).
In 1974, Reich began writing Music for 18 Musicians. This piece introduced many new ideas. It starts with a cycle of eleven chords. Then, there are sections of music based on each chord. Finally, it returns to the original chord cycle. This was Reich's first time writing for a larger group of musicians. He noted that this piece had more harmonic movement in its first five minutes than any other work he had written before.
One of Reich's special ways of composing is to leave out bass notes. This helps to avoid a strong tonal center. Music for 18 Musicians keeps its minimalist feel through its "phases" and harmonic shifts. Even though it's about an hour long, its repetitive rhythms are a big part of the music.
Reich continued to explore these ideas in Music for a Large Ensemble (1978) and Octet (1979). In these works, he experimented with using "the human breath as the measure of musical duration." This means the musical phrases were as long as one comfortable breath. Human voices are also part of Music for a Large Ensemble, but they sing without words.
With Octet and his first orchestral piece, Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards (1979), Reich's music showed the influence of Biblical Hebrew cantillation. He had studied this in Israel since 1977. After this, human voices singing actual words became more important in his music. He explained that this technique involves "taking pre-existing melodic patterns and stringing them together to form a longer melody in the service of a holy text."
In 1974, Reich published a book called Writings About Music. It contained his thoughts on music from 1963 to 1974. A larger collection, Writings On Music (1965–2000), was published in 2002.
Deeper Themes in the 1980s and 1990s
Exploring Heritage and History
In the 1980s, Reich's music became more serious. He started to include historical themes and ideas from his Jewish background. Tehillim (1981) means "psalms" in Hebrew. This was the first of his works to clearly use his Jewish heritage. The piece is for four women's voices and an ensemble of instruments. It uses texts from the Psalms. Tehillim was different from his earlier works because it used longer texts, making melody a more important part. It also used formal counterpoint and harmony, which was new for him.
Different Trains (1988), for string quartet and tape, uses recorded speech. But this time, the speech is used for its melody, not just its rhythm. In Different Trains, Reich compares his childhood train journeys in America with the very different trains used to transport children in Europe during a very sad time in history. The Kronos Quartet's recording of Different Trains won a Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition in 1990. Many people believe this piece helped make Reich one of the great composers of the 20th century.
Collaborations and New Sounds in the 1990s
In 1993, Reich worked with his wife, video artist Beryl Korot, on an opera called The Cave. This work explores the beginnings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It uses the words of people from Israel, Palestine, and America. The music echoes their words. The opera is named after the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron.
Reich and Korot also worked together on the opera Three Tales. This opera looks at events like the Hindenburg disaster, the testing of nuclear weapons, and modern topics like Dolly the sheep (the first cloned mammal) and cloning.
Reich used sampling techniques in pieces like Three Tales and City Life from 1994. He then returned to writing purely instrumental music for concerts. This included Triple Quartet in 1998. This piece can be played by a string quartet with a recording, by three string quartets, or by a large string orchestra.
Recent Works and Recognition
Music in the 2000s and 2010s
Reich continued to compose instrumental music. This included Dance Patterns (2002) and Cello Counterpoint (2003). He also created several works based on variations, such as You Are (Variations) (2004) and Daniel Variations (2006). The Daniel Variations were partly inspired by the death of Daniel Pearl.
In 2010, Steve Reich and Indaba Music held a remix contest. Over 250 people submitted remixes of his music. Reich said that once he finishes a piece, he doesn't change it himself. But he understood that remixes are an old tradition, like how religious melodies were developed into new songs.
In March 2011, Reich premiered WTC 9/11. This piece is for string quartet and tape, similar to Different Trains. It was created in response to the September 11 attacks. It uses recordings from emergency services and family members who were in New York during the attacks. The Kronos Quartet performed its first show.
On March 5, 2013, the London Sinfonietta performed the world premiere of Radio Rewrite. This work was inspired by the band Radiohead.
Music for Ensemble and Orchestra was first performed on November 4, 2018. This marked Reich's return to writing for orchestra after more than thirty years. Since 2006, Reich has lived with his wife Beryl Korot in a home in upstate New York.
Awards and Influence
Steve Reich has received many important awards for his music:
- In 2005, he received the Edward MacDowell Medal.
- In October 2006, he was given the Praemium Imperiale Award in Music.
- In January 2007, he was named a recipient of the Polar Music Prize.
- On April 20, 2009, Reich won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his piece Double Sextet. The award called it "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."
- In May 2011, he received an honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory of Music.
- In 2012, he received the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
- In 2013, Reich received the US$400,000 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award in contemporary music. This was for bringing a new idea of music that uses everyday sounds and elements from traditional African and Asian music.
- In September 2014, he was awarded the "Leone d'Oro" (Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music) from the Venice Biennale.
- In March 2016, Reich received an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal College of Music in London.
Many composers and musical groups have been influenced by Reich's style. These include John Adams, Michael Nyman, Aphex Twin, Björk, and Sonic Youth. John Adams once said about Reich, "He didn't reinvent the wheel so much as he showed us a new way to ride." This means Reich found new ways to use existing musical ideas.
Reich has also influenced visual artists and many famous choreographers. Choreographers like Eliot Feld and Jerome Robbins have created dances to his music.
His music has also reached new audiences. For example, the British electronic music group the Orb used a sample of Reich's Electric Counterpoint in their 1990 song Little Fluffy Clouds. In 1999, an album called Reich Remixed featured remixes of his works by various electronic dance-music producers.
Reich often mentions composers like Pérotin, J. S. Bach, Debussy, Bartók, and Stravinsky as people he admires. Jazz has also greatly shaped his musical style. He was influenced by vocalists like Ella Fitzgerald and Alfred Deller. He also admired John Coltrane's style of playing many notes over few harmonies. Reich's interest in jazz also connects to the West African music he studied. He has also said he admires the music of the band Radiohead, which led to his composition Radio Rewrite.
Compositions
- Pitch Charts (1963)
- Soundtrack for Plastic Haircut (1963)
- Music for two or more pianos (1964)
- Livelihood (1964)
- It's Gonna Rain (1965)
- Soundtrack for Oh Dem Watermelons (1965)
- Come Out (1966)
- Melodica for melodica and tape (1966)
- Reed Phase for soprano saxophone or other reed instrument and tape (1966)
- Piano Phase for two pianos or two marimbas (1967)
- Slow Motion Sound concept piece (1967)
- Violin Phase for violin and tape or four violins (1967)
- My Name Is for three tape recorders and performers (1967)
- Pendulum Music for 3 or 4 microphones, amplifiers and loudspeakers (1968, revised 1973)
- Pulse Music for phase shifting pulse gate (1969)
- Four Log Drums for four log drums and phase shifting pulse gate (1969)
- Four Organs for four electric organs and maracas (1970)
- Phase Patterns for four electric organs (1970)
- Drumming for 4 pairs of tuned bongo drums, 3 marimbas, 3 glockenspiels, 2 female voices, whistling and piccolo (1970/1971)
- Clapping Music for two musicians clapping (1972)
- Music for Pieces of Wood for five pairs of tuned claves (1973)
- Six Pianos (1973)
- Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973)
- Music for 18 Musicians (1974–76)
- Music for a Large Ensemble (1978, rev. 1979)
- Octet (1979) – later revised as Eight Lines (1983)
- Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards for orchestra (1979)
- Tehillim for voices and ensemble (1981)
- Vermont Counterpoint for amplified flute and tape (1982)
- The Desert Music for chorus and orchestra or voices and ensemble (1983)
- Sextet for percussion and keyboards (1984, rev. 1985)
- New York Counterpoint for amplified clarinet and tape, or 11 clarinets and bass clarinet (1985)
- Three Movements for orchestra (1986)
- Electric Counterpoint for electric guitar or amplified acoustic guitar and tape (1987)
- The Four Sections for orchestra (1987)
- Different Trains for string quartet and tape (1988)
- The Cave for four voices, ensemble and video (1993, with Beryl Korot)
- Duet for two violins and string ensemble (1993)
- Nagoya Marimbas for two marimbas (1994)
- City Life for amplified ensemble (1995)
- Proverb for voices and ensemble (1995)
- Triple Quartet for amplified string quartet (with prerecorded tape), or three string quartets, or string orchestra (1998)
- Know What Is Above You for four women's voices and 2 tamborims (1999)
- Three Tales for video projection, five voices and ensemble (1998–2002, with Beryl Korot)
- Dance Patterns for 2 xylophones, 2 vibraphones and 2 pianos (2002)
- Cello Counterpoint for amplified cello and multichannel tape (2003)
- You Are (Variations) for voices and ensemble (2004)
- For Strings (with Winds and Brass) for orchestra (1987/2004)
- Variations for Vibes, Pianos, and Strings dance piece for three string quartets, four vibraphones, and two pianos (2005)
- Daniel Variations for four voices and ensemble (2006)
- Double Sextet for 2 violins, 2 cellos, 2 pianos, 2 vibraphones, 2 clarinets, 2 flutes or ensemble and pre-recorded tape (2007)
- 2×5 for 2 drum sets, 2 pianos, 4 electric guitars and 2 bass guitars (2008)
- Mallet Quartet for 2 marimbas and 2 vibraphones or 4 marimbas (or solo percussion and tape) (2009)
- WTC 9/11 for string quartet and tape (2010)
- Finishing the Hat for two pianos (2011)
- Radio Rewrite for ensemble (2012)
- Quartet for two vibraphones and two pianos (2013)
- Pulse for winds, strings, piano and electric bass (2015)
- Runner for large ensemble (2016)
- For Bob for piano (2017)
- Music for Ensemble and Orchestra (2018)
- Reich/Richter for large ensemble (2019)
- Traveler's Prayer for 2 tenors, 2 sopranos, 2 vibraphones, 1 piano, 4 violins, 2 violas and 2 cellos (2020)
- Jacob's Ladder for 4 vocalists and large ensemble (2023)
Selected Recordings
- Live/Electric Music, (Columbia, 1968)
- Four Organs (1970)
- Music for 18 Musicians (ECM, 1978)
- Drumming. Steve Reich and Musicians (1971)
- Octet/Music for a Large Ensemble/Violin Phase. Steve Reich and Musicians (ECM, 1980)
- Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards/Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ/ Six Pianos. San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Edo de Waart, Steve Reich & Musicians (Philips, 1984)
- Tehillim/The Desert Music (ECM Records, 1982)
- Different Trains/Electric Counterpoint. Kronos Quartet, Pat Metheny (Elektra Nonesuch, 1989)
- Steve Reich: Works 1965–1995. Various performers (Nonesuch, 1997).
- Piano Phase, transcribed for guitar, Alexandre Gérard (Catapult)
- Reich Remixed, (Nonesuch, 1999)
- You Are (Variations)/Cello Counterpoint. Los Angeles Master Chorale, Grant Gershon, Maya Beiser (Nonesuch, 2005)
- Daniel Variations, with Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings. London Sinfonietta, Grant Gershon, Alan Pierson (Nonesuch, 2008)
- Double Sextet/2×5, Eighth Blackbird and Bang on a Can (Nonesuch, 2010)
- Radio Rewrite, Alarm Will Sound, Jonny Greenwood, Vicky Chow (Nonesuch, 2014)
- Pulse – Quartet, International Contemporary Ensemble, Colin Currie Group (Nonesuch, 2018)
Filmography
- Phase to Face, a film documentary about Steve Reich by Eric Darmon & Franck Mallet (EuroArts, 2011)
Images for kids
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Reich at the Holland Festival, June 1976
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Reich around 1982–1984
See also
In Spanish: Steve Reich para niños
