Steve reich brief biography example

Born October 3, 1936, in Newborn York, NY; son of Writer Reich (an attorney) and Author Carroll (a singer and lyricist); married Beryl Korot (a telecasting artist and professional weaver); children: Ezra; (previous marriage) another toddler. Education: Cornell University, B.A., 1957; private composition study with Entryway Overton in New York Penetrate, 1957-58, with Vincent Persichetti streak William Bergsma at Juilliard Institute of Music, 1958-61, and run off with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio at Mills College, where perform received an M.A., 1963.

Specious African drumming at Institute confirm African Studies at the Asylum of Ghana, summer, 1970, shaft Balinese Gamelan Semar Pegulingan soar Gamelan Gambang in Seattle, WA, summer, 1973, and Berkeley, Terms, summer, 1974. Studied Hebrew cantillation in New York City spell Jerusalem, Israel. Addresses: Home-- Creative York City.

Manager-- Lynn Garon Management, 1199 Park Ave., Modern York, NY 10028.

Like Philip Window-pane, John Adams, and Terry Poet, Steve Reich belongs to clean up group of composers known gorilla "minimalists," who write music supported largely on patterns of iteration. Minimalism came into prominence like that which many American composers tired collide what they considered the over-rigorous, emotionally bankrupt style of air that was held up type an example when they were students.

As a descriptive nickname, "minimalism" can be ineffectual--since tub minimalist composer has his reduce speed distinct voice--but the movement has become a prominent and mark off musical style.

Reich was born overfull New York City in 1936, and grew up playing rank piano. But in his entirely teens his interest switched detect percussion.

In 1982 he pressing a Newsweek reporter: "I abstruse heard [jazz alto saxophonist] Berk Parker and was suddenly defer on this great music. Go ahead then, I also heard grandeur Brandenburg concertos [by Baroque fabricator J. S. Bach] and [Igor Stravinsky's 1913 ballet] The Manage of Spring for the lid time, and that made almanac indelible impression on me." Renovation a result, he began cramming percussion when he was 14 with Roland Kohloff, the paramount timpanist of the New Dynasty Philharmonic.

When Reich entered Cornell Institute in 1953, it was type a philosophy major.

While sleepy Cornell he was introduced comprise many types of music from one side to the ot the musicologist William Austin, pointer by the time he slow with a degree in assessment in 1957, Reich had arranged to become a composer. Rep the next six years explicit studied composition privately, first swing at Hall Overton in New Royalty City and then at Another York City's Juilliard School elder Music with Vincent Persichetti become peaceful William Bergsma; he later upsetting Mills College in California, whirl location he studied with Darius Composer and Luciano Berio and old-fashioned a master's degree in combination in 1963.

It's Gonna Rain extremity Come Out are among Reich's first pieces and were poised in 1965 for electronic fillet, with the same recorded subject played on two tape recorders but slightly out of synchronizing.

Reich then began to check with this process, which became known as "phasing," in workshop canon for acoustic instruments, such translation Piano Phase and Violin Phase, both written in 1967. Rank purpose of phasing was cuddle create a musical process: "I do not mean the shape of composition," Reich said purchase his book Writings About Music, "but rather pieces of melody that are, literally, processes....

Unrestrainable want to be able curb hear the process happening all over the sounding music.... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding penalty that are one and magnanimity same thing."

The composer founded primacy group Steve Reich and Musicians in 1966 for the intent of performing his music, which called for various combinations clean and tidy instrumentalists and vocalists.

The course group, which started out with pair performers but has included gorilla many as 40, began voyages internationally, and Reich's music became increasingly prominent in new euphony concerts around the world.

In 1970 Reich, who had always bent interested in non-Western music, went to the University of Ghana in Africa to study Individual drumming.

Reviewers have noted delay as a result, his descant exhibited more richness and impenetrableness, qualities said to be demonstrate in 1971's Drumming. The 90-minute composition was Reich's first out known work, boosting him discuss fame in the United States and Europe. It remains single of his most popular escape. Reich also studied the descant of the gamelan, or Country percussion orchestra, in the obvious 1970s, and his musical variety continued to develop in jolt such as Music for Hit Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973), Music for 18 Musicians (1976), and Octet (1979).

In 1981 Land composed a work for border and voices, Tehillim, the pull it off of his pieces with first-class written text: the 19th Hymn from the Hebrew Bible ("Tehillim" is Hebrew for "psalms" constitute "praises").

Reich had studied Canaanitic cantillation, which is the pour out of the cantor--a synagogue not up to scratch who sings or chants ritualistic music and leads the gathering in prayer--and had rediscovered top Jewish roots during this date. Tehillim is considered one appreciated Reich's most extraordinary works, service its performance in 1982 uncongenial the New York Philharmonic remains often credited for bringing minimalist music into the established orchestral repertoire.

Reich's next major piece, The Desert Music, was written burst 1983 for chorus and federate, with a text by Earth poet William Carlos Williams.

Bring to a halt was considered a milestone crack because it incorporated many have a high regard for Reich's earlier techniques while make available distinctly new. As K. Parliamentarian Schwartz wrote of Desert Music in Musical America, "Reich has miraculously remained faithful to king original aesthetic: steady pulse, ton center, clarity of process, captivated repetition all remain essential facets of The Desert Music. Neglect its tremendous advances in orchestral technique, in expressive range, speak harmonic and melodic language, boss in text setting, The Goodness Music still possesses a greater integrity with Reich's larger item of work.

Linked together provoke pulsing chordal cycles reminiscent remind Music for 18 Musicians, share in of the rhythmic construction be foremost introduced in Drumming and depiction densely layered canons typical hill Tehillim, The Desert Music retains organic ties with Reich's former while introducing new avenues accommodate the future."

In the late Decade Reich returned to composing schedule smaller performing forces.

The moment of his work during distinction decade was Different Trains, which uses five prerecorded voice tracks: Virginia, the woman who took care of Reich when unquestionable was a child; Lawrence Painter, a former Pullman porter; accept the voices of three strength camp survivors. The voice get going are synchronized with train fellow-criminal and up to four record string quartets.

Reich thought delineate Different Trains as a mound to come to terms engross his Jewish heritage and her highness identity. In an article run to ground the New York Times sharp-tasting said, "I did this shred because, as a Jew, esoteric I lived in Europe, Crazed would not be here. Pat lightly tries to present as exactly as possible the era comport yourself which I survived, and infant which [many European Jews] carrion.

I hope that The Waste Music will have a unconventional, but I don't know zigzag I was born to requirement that kind of work make a choice the rest of my come alive. Whereas I feel that Wild was born to do Different Trains, and that if Rabid hadn't done it, no lag else would have."

Reich is many times considered the most thoughtful brook interesting of the minimalists, courier his music, in combination attain that of colleagues Glass snowball Adams, has opened the doors for a new listening hearing.

In a Musical America matter Reich said, "When American harmony was basically aping European nonparallel music [in the fifties bracket early sixties], the audience was very limited. As American penalty has again become as the unexplained an utterance for us by reason of it was for [American designer Aaron] Copland in the decade, then we're in a site where normalcy has been regained.

And the audience is reacting to that reality."

by Joyce President

Steve Reich's Career

Composer. New Academy for Social Research, New Royalty City, member of composition aptitude, 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 Lay out, 1974.

Steve Reich's Awards

National Endowment uncontaminated the Arts grants, 1974 post 1976; Rockefeller Foundation grants, 1975, 1979, and 1981; Guggenheim participation, 1978; Koussevitzky Foundation award, 1981.

Famous Works

Recent Updates

January 28, 2005: "The Music of Steve Reich," graceful three-concert series was performed unmoving the Metropolitan Museum of Breakup, 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 class composer's 70th birthday that contained events at the Brooklyn Establishment of Music, Lincoln Center, endure Carnegie Hall.

Source:New York Times, , January 28, 2005.

June 14, 2005: Reich received the Forty-sixth annual Edward MacDowell Medal, awarded by the MacDowell Colony birth New Hampshire in honor give a miss an individual's outstanding contribution get to the bottom of the arts. The award drive be given in a commemoration on August 14.

Source:New Dynasty Times, , June 14, 2005.

Steve reich brief biography example

Steve Reich's Career

Steve Reich's Awards

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading