Stephen Michael Reich is an American composer who is known for his contribution to the development 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.
Piano Phase is a minimalist composition by American composer Steve Reich, written in 1967 for two pianos. It is one of his first attempts at applying his "phasing" technique, which he had previously used in the tape pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), to live performance.
In C is a musical piece composed by Terry Riley in 1964 for an indefinite number of performers. He suggests "a group of about 35 is desired if possible but smaller or larger groups will work". A series of short melodic fragments that can be repeated at the discretion of musicians, In C is often cited as the first minimalist composition to make a significant impact on the public consciousness.
Process music is music that arises from a process. It may make that process audible to the listener, or the process may be concealed.
Music for 18 Musicians is a work of minimalist music composed by Steve Reich during 1974–1976. Its world premiere was on April 24, 1976, at The Town Hall in the Midtown Manhattan Theater District. Following this, a recording of the piece was released on the ECM New Series in 1978. The 1998 recording for Nonesuch Records won the Grammy Award for Best Small Ensemble Performance.
Violin Phase is a musical work written by minimalist composer Steve Reich in October 1967.
Minimal music is a form of art music or other compositional practice that employs limited or minimal musical materials. Prominent features of minimalist music include repetitive patterns or pulses, steady drones, consonant harmony, and reiteration of musical phrases or smaller units. It may include features such as phase shifting, resulting in what is termed phase music, or process techniques that follow strict rules, usually described as process music. The approach is marked by a non-narrative, non-teleological, and non-representational approach, and calls attention to the activity of listening by focusing on the internal processes of the music.
Six Pianos is a minimalist piece for six pianos by the American composer Steve Reich. It was completed in March 1973. He also composed a variation for six marimbas, called Six Marimbas, in 1986. The world première performance of Six Pianos was in May 1973 at the John Weber Gallery in New York City. The European première took place in January the next year in Stuttgart, Germany.
Steve Reich and Musicians, sometimes credited as the Steve Reich Ensemble, is a musical ensemble founded and led by the American composer Steve Reich. The group has premiered and performed many of Reich's works both nationally and internationally. In 1999, Reich received a Grammy Award for "Best Small Ensemble Performance " for the ensemble's performance of Music for 18 Musicians.
Arthur "Art" Bixler Murphy was a classical and jazz musician, pianist and composer. He was born in Princeton, New Jersey. He grew up in Oberlin, OH, where his father was a member of the Oberlin College faculty.
Drumming is a piece by minimalist composer Steve Reich, dating from 1970–1971. Reich began composition of the work after a short visit to Ghana and observing music and musical ensembles there, especially under the Anlo Ewe master drummer Gideon Alorwoyie. His visit was cut short after contracting malaria. Classical music critic K. Robert Schwarz describes the work as "minimalism's first masterpiece".
Tabula Rasa is a musical composition written in 1977 by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt. The piece contains two movements, "Ludus" and "Silentium," and is a double concerto for two solo violins, prepared piano, and chamber orchestra.
Eight Lines is a work by American minimalist composer Steve Reich which was originally titled Octet.
Variations for Winds, Strings and Keyboards is an orchestral piece composed in 1979 by Steve Reich. The piece is scored for oboes, flutes, full brass, strings, pianos, and electric organs. Variations was Reich's first orchestral piece.
Double Sextet is a composition by Steve Reich scored for two sextets of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, vibraphone and piano. It won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music, the first for the composer. With funds from the Carnegie Hall Corporation, The Abe Fortas Memorial Fund of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Liverpool Culture Company – European Capital of Culture 2008, The Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of Richmond, Orange County Performing Arts Center, The University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music – Music 08 Festival the piece was commissioned in 2007 by Eighth Blackbird who performed its premiere in 2008, at the University of Richmond in Virginia.. The Liverpool Culture Company was the only non-US commissioning organisation and hosted the rest-of-the-world premiere at St. George's Concert Room, Liverpool on the 21st of November 2008 as part of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture celebrations.
Phase music is a form of music that uses phasing as a primary compositional process. It is an approach to musical composition that is often associated with minimal music, as it shares similar characteristics, but some commentators prefer to treat phase music as a separate category. Phasing is a compositional technique in which the same part is played on two musical instruments, in steady but not identical tempi. Thus, the two instruments gradually shift out of unison, creating first a slight echo as one instrument plays a little behind the other, then a doubling effect with each note heard twice, then a complex ringing effect, and eventually coming back through doubling and echo into unison.
Bob Becker is an American percussionist and composer known primarily as a founding member of the Nexus percussion ensemble, as well as a performer in the Steve Reich and Musicians ensemble. He primarily performs as a keyboard percussionist, but is also skilled in tabla and concert snare drumming. As a composer, Becker employs a multicultural approach by mixing the style of western military drumming with North Indian Hindustani idioms, such as raga scale patterns and tabla drumming. This fusion of compositional practices is the main focus of works like Lahara and Mudra. There are also traces of influence from the music of minimalists like Steve Reich, which can be attributed to Becker's experience with that composer's music.
Reed Phase, also called Three Reeds, is an early work by the American minimalist composer Steve Reich. It was written originally in 1966 for soprano saxophone and two soprano saxophones recorded on magnetic tape, titled at that time Saxophone Phase, and was later published in two versions: one for any reed instrument and tape, the other for three reed instruments of exactly the same kind. It was Reich's first attempt at applying his "phasing" technique, which he had previously used in the tape pieces It's Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), to live performance.
New York Counterpoint for amplified clarinet and tape, or 9 clarinets and 3 bass clarinets, is a 1985 minimalist composition written by American composer Steve Reich. The piece, intended to capture the throbbing vibrancy of Manhattan, is notable for its ability to imitate electronic sounds through acoustic instrumentation.
Music for 18 Musicians is a minimalist album by composer Steve Reich recorded between April–December 1976 and released on the ECM New Series in April 1978—his first of three releases for the label. The ensemble features eighteen musicians, including Reich himself playing the part of piano and marimba, playing Reich's titular composition.
