Steve Reich's latest Nonesuch release, Daniel Variations, will be in stores tomorrow, and the Metro (UK) gives the album five stars, calling it "remarkable." MusicOMH gives the album four stars, calling the title piece "the most vital of Reich's recent works," suggesting it marks "a new stylistic phase" for the composer.

Steve Reich's music was a focal point of the South by Southwest festival's first-ever classical music showcase, Reich, Rags, & Road Movies: Music by Steve Reich & Friends, Wednesday night. Austin360 says it was "a hit." The first half of the program included works by Reich, John Adams, and Elliott Carter; the second was all Reich. In Austin, the Wall Street Journal spoke with Reich about his forthcoming Nonesuch CD, Daniel Variations.

Steve Reich and John Adams will be among the composers whose works will be featured in the first-ever South by Southwest (SXSW) festival showcase from music publisher Boosey & Hawkes, titled Reich, Rags, & Road Movies: Music by Steve Reich & Friends. Reich will also participate in a discussion with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore tomorrow.

Thousands of music, film, and new-media types from across the world are converging on Austin, Texas, this week for SXSW. Among the participating artists will be Steve Reich, whose music will be performed with that of John Adams's at a showcase tomorrow night, and who will join Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore for a discussion the following afternoon; and The Black Keys, who will perform late-night tomorrow and at the Village Voice party on Friday. Next week, David Simon, the creator of The Wire, will speak at the University of Texas.

On the same day Alex Ross, the New Yorker music critic, enjoyed the Stephen Colbert treatment as a guest on the Colbert Report, Gothamist published an interview with Ross, in which he discusses his new book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century. In the interview, Ross is asked what he would recommend to someone just learning to explore classical music. To get the full experience suggests both attending a live concert and buying a few representative CDs, including Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's album of Bach cantatas, BWV 82 and 199, and Steve Reich and Musicians playing Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. As for his current "soundtrack to the city," Ross cites two film scores: Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood and Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi.

The Black Keys join label mate Steve Reich on the roster for this year's South by Southwest conference, which will be held March 12-16 in Austin, Texas. For the band, their performance marks the start of a tour in support of their forthcoming Nonesuch release. Reich will be speaking at the conference with Sonic Youth front man Thurston Moore.

Sufjan Stevens, when asked at the PENultimate Lit event last night in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to name his top five albums of all time, named just one: Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. The event was organized by the PEN American Center to examine the intersection of literature and the arts; hosted by Rick Moody, it featured a Q&A with Sufjan and fellow writer/singer-songwriter Wesley Stace (aka John Wesley Harding), as well as a performance by each. The "top five albums" question came from an audience member.

The South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival has just announced that Steve Reich will participate in the March 2008 conference, in a conversation with Thurston Moore. 

The Zenon Dance Company, based in Minnesota's Twin Cities, is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a series of performances beginning tonight and running through Sunday. The Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages previews the shows and lists among the program's highlights classic pieces like Bebe Miller's Sanctuary, set to music by Marianne Faithfull, and two new works, including the Midwestern premiere of Doug Varone's Of the Earth Far Below set to Steve Reich's Triple Quartet.

This week, New England Conservatory held a mini-festival celebrating the music of Steve Reich, with four free concerts held over Wednesday and Thursday nights. In today's Boston Globe, correspondent Kevin Lowenthal reports from Wednesday's concerts, which featured Piano Phases, Different Trains, Six Pianos, and, as the closing piece, Music for 18 Musicians. About the last, Lowenthal writes that "More than 30 years since its debut, the piece remains fresh. It evokes a blazing night sky observed to the sound of crickets, then moves beyond that to the mind's imaginative journey through the infinity of space."

The New Music Collective out of Charleston, South Carolina, begins its season this Sunday with a program called New Music, New Charleston, which will include a performance of Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint by area guitarist David Linaburg, along with two world premieres of works by local composers. 

Tonight marks the first night of public performances in New England Conservatory's two-day, four-concert Steve Reich festival. "Reich is that rare breed," writes Bostonist.com in a preview of the events: "the composer admired by the concert hall crowd but enjoyed by everybody." And with all of the concerts free of charge, Bostonist suggests taking in both nights, including tonight's Music for 18 Musicians and the Boston premiere of City Life and Daniel Variations on Thursday.