The Composer

Steve Reich is one of those composers who have succeeded in carving out a niche for themselves in the world of contemporary music - that is, who have developed a readily identifiable individual idiom. Moreover, Reich is fully conscious of the various stages of that development and can pinpoint the influences over the past decades that have acted as catalysts. Beyond his teachers, who included Luciano Berio at Mills College in California, listening to music by Stravinsky in his teens played an important role, as did his experiences with jazz as played by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Kenny Clarke and others.

“Even more importantly, I became clear about the nature of canons as a basic [...]