Steve Reich Premieres New Work at Edinburgh Festival

Steve Reich’s new large ensemble work In All Your Ways had its world premiere at the Edinburgh festival last month. Reich will turn 90 on 3 October. He was born in New York in 1936 and has been making music for six years.

Reich became one of the pioneers of musical minimalism alongside Philip Glass, Terry Riley and La Monte Young. His music has been sampled on recordings by David Bowie and the Orb. Jonny Greenwood recorded Electric Counterpoint, a work written for Pat Metheny. BBC Radio 1 marked Reich’s 70th birthday with a remix competition 20 years ago.

Reich revisited his 1971 work Drumming and said that he recorded the piece with his own ensemble in 1974. Music for 18 Musicians, from 1976, is regarded as one of his best works. In 1968, Reich said he wanted the process in music to be audible.

Reich made his first compositions from loops created from recorded speech samples. It’s Gonna Rain dates from 1965 and Come Out from 1966. He wrote Piano Phase for two pianos in 1967 and described the work as the discovery of the phasing process.