REICH, STEVE

(Stephen Michael Reich), 1936–, American composer, b. New York City. A well-known exponent of minimalism, he attended Cornell (B.A., 1957), the Julliard School of Music (1958–61), and Mills College (M.A., 1963), where he studied with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio. Also influenced by John Cage, he began to create experimental works in the 1960s, showing an interest in electronic and tape-recorded elements. By the late 1960s, he was composing works based on the almost hypnotic repetition of short modular units of minutely changing chords, tonal progressions, and rhythms. Having studied drumming in childhood, he retained an interest in percussion and has incorporated such instruments as the Balinese gamelan and Ghanian tribal drums into his compositions. Voice is also an important component of many of his works. Reich's compositions include the film score for Plastic Haircut (1963), Drumming (1971), Music for 18 Musicians (1979), Tehillim (1981), Different Trains (1988), City Life (1994), and Triple Quartet (1999).

See his Writings about Music (1974); W. Mertens, American Minimal Music: La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich (1983)

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