Steve Reich at Eastman Concert March 31, 2007

One of Americas most respected and popular composers, Steve Reich, will visit the Eastman School of Music on March 31, as part of Reichs worldwide 70th birthday celebrations. Reichs time at Eastman includes a symposium with the composer speaking about his music to students (12:30 p.m., Room 209, Main Building), and he will attend a Musica Nova concert of four of his most significant pieces that evening, conducted by Brad Lubman.

Born in 1936, Steve Reich is now considered one of the great minimalist composers, although his influence on contemporary music far transcends any labels. He has been hailed as Americas greatest living composer (Village Voice), the most original musical thinker of our time (The New Yorker), and among the great composers of the century (New York Times). From his early taped speech pieces Its Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966), in which tape loops are used to create phasing patterns, to his exploration of repetitive figures in such pioneering process music pieces as Pendulum Music (1968, 1973) and Four Organs (1970), to his and video artist Beryl Korots digital video Three Tales (2002), Reichs path has embraced not only aspects of Western Classical music, but also the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz.

Theres just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history, and Steve Reich is one of them, states The Guardian (London).

Musica Nova Concert
Brad Lubman, conducting
All-Steve Reich program:
Drumming Part One (1970)
Cello Counterpoint (2003)
Different Trains (1988)
Sextet (1984)

Event submitted by Eventful.com on behalf of carillonista.