Steve Reich is the Distinguished Guest Composer at the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra's 2013 New Music Festival, which gets under way today and runs to this Saturday, February 2. Reich will be in attendance for the festival, which showcases his work over several concerts, discussions, and a dance performance this week.

The celebration of Reich's music begins at the Pantages Theatre in Winnipeg on Wednesday evening, when the University of Manitoba Flute Ensemble performs the composer's 1982 piece Vermont Counterpoint. The concert also features the University of Manitoba Wind Ensemble and Winnipeg Wind Ensemble performing works by Canadian composers Andrew Staniland and Malcolm Forsyth and American composer Eric Whitacre.

Steve Reich’s chamber music is the focus of a performance at Centennial Concert Hall Thursday evening. The all-Reich program includes Clapping Music, performed by University of Manitoba Percussion Ensemble; Different Trains (1988); New York Counterpoint (1985); and his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning piece Double Sextet, to which choreographer Peter Quanz has set his work In Tandem. Dancers from Canada’s Royal Winnipeg Ballet will perform. Reich will participate in an "up close and personal" event after the concert.

On Friday night at Centennial Concert Hall, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Alexander Mickelthwate, perform Steve Reich's Tehillim (1981), the story of which is taken from parts of the Psalms, classical Western text and original Hebrew. Also on the program are two North American premieres: Jonny Greenwood's Suite from There Will Be Blood (the London Sinfonietta will give the world premiere of Reich's new Radiohead-inspired piece, Radio Rewrite, in London this March) and a piece by New Zealand composer Gareth Farr, which features a performance from percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, the festival's Distinguished Guest Artist.

The artists return to Centennial Concert Hall on Saturday for the final night of the festival. The Winnipeg Singers join Mickelthwate and the WSO in a performance of Reich's 1983 piece The Desert Music, which takes its title from a collection of poems by William Carlos Williams. Glennie joins for the world premiere of a piece commissioned by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra from Canadian composer Vincent Ho. Reich will participate in another "up close and personal" event after Saturday's show.

For additional details on this week's Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra celebration of Steve Reich's music and more, visit newmusicfestival.ca.