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Steve Reich
When New York Was 'On Fire': A Mid-'70s Musical Revolution

Clockwise from top left: DJ Kool Herc, Patti Smith, the Fania All-Stars, Talking Heads at CBGB, Laurie Anderson and her viophonograph. From 'Love Goes to Buildings on Fire'/Courtesy of Cindy Campbell, Columbia Records, Fania Records, Robert Spencer, Laurie Anderson hide caption

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From 'Love Goes to Buildings on Fire'/Courtesy of Cindy Campbell, Columbia Records, Fania Records, Robert Spencer, Laurie Anderson

All Songs Considered

When New York Was 'On Fire': A Mid-'70s Musical Revolution

With author Will Hermes, All Songs explores the heady years that birthed new-wave, hip-hop, salsa, minimalism and more.

When New York Was 'On Fire': A Mid-'70s Musical Revolution

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Steve Reich At 80: The Phases Of A Lifetime In Music

Composer Steve Reich, who turned 80 on Oct. 3. Carolyn Cole/LA Times via Getty Images hide caption

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Carolyn Cole/LA Times via Getty Images

Deceptive Cadence

Steve Reich At 80: The Phases Of A Lifetime In Music

He's been a hero to musicians from Brian Eno and David Bowie to Radiohead and The National. Now entering his ninth decade, American composer Steve Reich is always looking ahead.

Steve Reich At 80: The Phases Of A Lifetime In Music

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Philip Glass And Steve Reich At BAM: Together Again Yet Still Apart

Four Organs by Steve Reich was performed Tuesday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music as part of the 50th anniversary of the Nonesuch label (from left: Philip Glass, Nico Muhly, David Cossin, Timo Andres and Steve Reich). Stephanie Berger hide caption

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Stephanie Berger

Deceptive Cadence

Philip Glass And Steve Reich At BAM: Together Again Yet Still Apart

Estranged colleagues Philip Glass and Steve Reich hadn't appeared together for more than 30 years — until last night in Brooklyn. Yet it was the music, not the reunion, that carried the show.

ACME In Concert: Steve Reich's Complete String Quartets

Members of ACME (violinists Caroline Shaw and Ben Russell, violist Nadia Sirota and cellist Clarice Jensen) dug into Steve Reich's Different Trains to open their performance, recorded live on Sept. 11, 2012. AJ Wilhelm for NPR hide caption

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AJ Wilhelm for NPR

Live in Concert

ACME In Concert: Steve Reich's Complete String Quartets

Q2

A group of New York City contemporary music dynamos traversed three landmark works in a single evening, recorded live at New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge.

ACME In Concert: Steve Reich's Complete String Quartets

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Electric Guitars Amp Up New Classical Music

Some of the 200 guitarists who took part in Rhys Chatham's A Crimson Grail at Lincoln Center's Out of Doors Festival in August 2009. YouTube hide caption

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YouTube

Deceptive Cadence

Electric Guitars Amp Up New Classical Music

Not that long ago, a composer using an electric guitar would have seemed like a crime against the state of classical music. Here are five pieces from recent decades that show how musicians have used this American invention to extend and expand the European tradition.

Music Interviews

Steve Reich: 'Music for 18 (Cornfed) Musicians'

Grand Valley State University is not known for its music department. But the New Music Ensemble at the small Midwestern college has impressed the critics and the composer with a new recording of Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

Steve Reich: 'Music for 18 (Cornfed) Musicians'

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Music News

Steve Reich Wins Music Pulitzer

Reich is the first Pulitzer winner from the generation of composers who developed the style called minimalism. His Double Sextet was designed to be performed by six musicians playing against a recording of themselves. It was premiered by the eclectic ensemble Eighth Blackbird.

Hear An Excerpt Of Steve Reich's 'Double Sextet'

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Music

Beauty Amid the Discord: Music in the 20th Century

From the musical buzz in pre-WWI Vienna to the experimental New York scene of the 1960s and on through today, Alex Ross reveals the story of 20th-century music in his new book The Rest Is Noise.

Beauty Amid the Discord: Music in the 20th Century

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Music

Steve Reich at 70

Fresh Air

Minimalist composer Steve Reich, who celebrated his 70th birthday last week, is considered one of our foremost living composers. Nonesuch Records has released a new box set, Phases: A Nonesuch Retrospective, and in New York City, there will be a month-long series of dance performances, concerts, and workshops at BAM, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center. Interviews with Reich originally aired May 11, 1999 and March 31, 1989.

Steve Reich at 70

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Music Interviews

New York Fetes Composer Steve Reich at 70

American composer Steve Reich turns 70 Tuesday. Reich is a pioneering minimalist, working in a style of music characterized by an almost hypnotic repetition, with subtle changes in texture.

New York Fetes Composer Steve Reich at 70

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Review

Music

So Percussion, Playing Pipes Bought for A Song

The Brooklyn-based ensemble So Percussion improvises instruments from materials found at Home Depot and other sources associated more with plumbing supplies than with the performing arts. A distinctive sound emerges.

So Percussion, Playing Pipes Bought for A Song

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Music Interviews

Steve Reich: A Wild Compositional Ride

Steve Reich is one of the pioneering voices of the minimalist movement in classical music. Now he's written two pieces that he says may be his best work. A CD of these pieces is being released this week.

Steve Reich: A Wild Compositional Ride

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