Steve Reich performed at London's Royal Albert Hall last night as part of an all-Reich program with Ensemble Modern for the BBC Proms. The concert is now available online. "There could be no better way of celebrating Steve Reich’s 75th birthday than with a performance of his Music for 18 Musicians," says the Independent in its five-star review, "and the packed hall for this late-night Prom testified to the size and devotion of his fan-club." The Guardian says the concert helped mark Reich's "ongoing acceptance into the pantheon of the greats of the western classical tradition."
Steve Reich performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London last night as part of an all-Reich program for the BBC Proms. The concert, which marks the composer's 75th birthday year, included three groundbreaking Reich pieces—Clapping Music, Electric Counterpoint, and Music for 18 Musicians—and featured the composer on percussion and piano, along with guitarist Mats Bergström, Synergy Vocals, and Ensemble Modern. The concert is now available to listen online for the next six days at bbc.co.uk.
The Independent gives the concert a perfect five stars.
"There could be no better way of celebrating Steve Reich’s 75th birthday than with a performance of his Music for 18 Musicians," writes Independent reviewer Michael Church, "and the packed hall for this late-night Prom testified to the size and devotion of his fan-club. This is a work for which ‘ground-breaking’ really is the mot juste, yet although it has earned Reich the title ‘founding father of minimalism,' he himself regards it as leaving minimalism far behind."
Read the five-star concert review at independent.co.uk.
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The Guardian gives four stars to the concert, which "had a genuine feeling of celebration," says reviewer George Hall, and helped mark Reich's "ongoing acceptance into the pantheon of the greats of the western classical tradition."
Music for 18 Musicians "is more widely admired with each passing year," says Hall. "In its luminously percussive sound world, topped off by the gemlike precision of Synergy Vocals' interventions, its endless harmonic perspectives seem to spin off into an infinite distance."
Read the complete review at guardian.co.uk.
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To pick up a copy of the 1998 Grammy Award–winning Nonesuch recording of Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich and Musicians, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s at checkout.
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