Steve Reich led a concert of his works at London's Royal Festival Hall last weekend. The Guardian and The Times both give it four stars, the latter calling it "spellbinding." "Three thousand people sat gripped on Saturday night by 11 musical chords elongated over 57 minutes," says The Times. "Nearly half a century has passed since Steve Reich’s first concerts, but the standing ovation after Music for 18 Musicians suggested that his brand of minimalism hasn’t lost its hypnotic allure."

Steve Reich was born in New York, raised there and California, and has spent much of his life in the City. He has also been spending time in Vermont for more than three decades. Vermont Public Radio spoke with the composer about his career and how the quiet of Vermont has influenced his writing. He was in Massachusetts this weekend for MASS MoCA's Bang on a Can Festival, which culminated in a performance of Music for 18 Musicians. Says the Boston Globe: "Reich’s towering 1976 epic rang out like a renewed statement of purpose: a postmodern hoedown of joyfully interlocking parts."

Steve Reich's latest creation, 2x5, premieres tonight on a double bill with pioneering electronic music group Kraftwerk, in a sold-out concert to open the Manchester International Festival. Bang On A Can performs the piece with the composer in the sound booth. The piece builds on the framework of Reich's 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning work, Double Sextet. The Star-Ledger writes of a recent performance of Double Sextet that "both the piece itself and the sense of lifetime achievement came through in full glory." The Guardian, in a feature on the composer, writes, "Reich has been composing for more than 40 years. In that time, he has seen the music he is most closely associated with ... seemingly emerge from nowhere to become one of the dominant musical forms of the age."

Steve Reich is set to join famed German electronic-music pioneers Kraftwerk as the special guest in a sold-out show marking the Opening Night of the 2009 Manchester International Festival on July 2. The concert will feature the world premiere of Reich’s 2x5, led by the composer and performed by Bang on a Can. The Festival has teamed up with Boosey & Hawkes, Steve Reich's publisher, for a unique opportunity to win a pair of tickets to the sold-out event and accommodations through a contest on Twitter @SteveReich.

Nonesuch Records congratulates Steve Reich, who has been awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his piece Double Sextet. The piece received its world premiere on March 26, 2008, at the University of Richmond, in Richmond, Virginia, in a performance by the ensemble eighth blackbird, which commissioned it. The Pulitzer citation calls Double Sextet "a major work that displays an ability to channel an initial burst of energy into a large-scale musical event, built with masterful control and consistently intriguing to the ear." Reich has also been nominated for the 2009 Classical BRIT Awards Composer of the Year Award, for Daniel Variations.

To mark the start of National Poetry Month, Steve Reich will join a diverse array of noteworthy public figures, including musicians, actors, and writers, among others, at Lincoln Center's newly remodeled Avery Fisher Hall tonight to read their favorite poems by some of America's best-loved poets. Among those scheduled to read along with Reich are Joan Baez, Mia Farrow, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chip Kidd, Wynton Marsalis, and Zadie Smith. Proceeds from the event, titled Poetry & The Creative Mind, benefit the Academy of American Poets and will help provide free classroom materials to more than 200,000 schools across the US this month.

Steve Reich is the featured composer at this weekend's cycle of the Salzburg Biennale, a new festival for contemporary music. Events begin tonight with a performance of choreographer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Fase, featuring four works by Reich, and continue through the weekend with performances of Reich's works by the Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Synergy Ensemble, Ictus Ensemble, and the composer himself. Interspersed are performances by a traditional Balinese gamelan, to reflect its influence on the composer.

Steve Reich & Musicians' performance capped off a marathon concert at Lincoln Center's newly renovated Alice Tully Hall Tuesday night for the Hall's Opening Nights Festival. Starting the concert off was Alarm Will Sound, followed by Bang on a Can All-Stars with Glenn Kotche, whose Mobile the New York Times describes as a "bright-edged, vigorously syncopated" piece. The Times says Reich and his ensemble gave "a supple account" of the composer's Music for 18 Musicians, "a pivotal work in Mr. Reich’s canon and a score that helps define the boundary between Minimalism and post-Minimalism."

Steve Reich, Glenn Kotche and Bang on a Can All-Stars, and Alarm Will Sound help celebrate the opening of Lincoln Center's spectacularly revamped Alice Tully Hall Starr Theater with a marathon evening of performances titled New York, New Music, New Hall tonight. Kotche and Bang on a Can give the New York premiere of his piece Mobile, and Steve Reich & Musicians with Synergy Vocals perform Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. It's all part of the Center's two-week Opening Nights Festival to inaugurate the new space.

Steve Reich is a featured composer at this year's Modfest, an annual festival at Vassar College celebrating the music, art, poetry, and film of the 20th and 21st centuries. Modfest 2009 began late last week and runs through February 13, with a total of 18 events, including two all-Reich concerts, a conversation with the composer, a dance performance of works set to his music, a film screening and discussion, and a lecture about Reich's music.

While 2008 may go down as one of the more turbulent years in recent (or distant) memory, or, more optimistically, a time of change, there is much to celebrate in the year in music. Nonesuch artists across all genres have contributed to that and, accordingly, have made their way onto many critics' lists of the year's best. For the final Nonesuch Journal article of the year, we offer an overview of just some of that year-end critical praise.