This week, the New England Conservatory in Boston presents a two-day, four-concert mini-festival celebrating the music of Steve Reich. The composer will be directly involved in the events, leading rehearsals on Tuesday and working directly with Conservatory students in workshops on Wednesday. Kicking off the public events that night is a performance of Piano Phase. Closing the festival on Thursday night at Jordan Hall are two Boston premieres: City Life and Daniel Variations. The debut recording of the latter piece is due out on Nonesuch in early 2008.

New Yorker music critic Alex Ross will be reading from his new book, The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century, at Politics & Prose in Washington, DC, tomorrow. In advance of the reading, he spoke with Washington Post's Express about the state of classical music, and offered readers some Top Five lists on the subject. Number one on his list of contemporary classical works pop listeners might like: Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians.

Tonight kicks off the University of Wisconsin–Madison Dance Program's Fall Faculty Dance Concert, which runs through Saturday, November 17. The event will feature works by faculty choreographers, including the premiere of Professor Li Chiao-Ping's Turnaround, set to the third movement of Steve Reich's Different Trains, "After the War." The new dance piece was created for students and, according to the Madison Daily Page, "takes snapshot looks at a community left to rebuild itself." It will also represent the University at a regional dance festival to be held in Madison in March 2008.

Pianist Philip Bush reports in his blog, Mostly Music in the Midlands, from his weeklong tour through France with the Steve Reich Ensemble and conductor Alan Pierson performing The Cave, Reich's early '90s video-opera collaboration with Beryl Korot.

Organizers of the Ojai Music Festival have released a few details for the 62nd annual event, with Dawn Upshaw slated to perform and Steve Reich named as composer-in-residence. The Festival, which runs June 5–8, 2008, marks the composer's first appearance there in 35 years and includes a number of events featuring his works. 

The 2007 Dance Chicago festival kicked off its monthlong series of events last Friday at the city's Athenaeum Theatre, and according to Chicago Sun-Times dance critic Hedy Weiss, the opening weekend's festivities did not disappoint. Among the program's special events was the world premiere of choreographer Eddy Ocampo's Thwack, in which dancers from the Black Box Dance company performed to the rhythms of music by Steve Reich.

In Sunday's New York Times, writer John Strausbaugh remembers Moondog, the avant-garde street poet/performer/composer who influenced the likes of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. This "Viking of Sixth Avenue" was a longtime fixture on the corner of Manhattan's Sixth Avenue and 54th Street through the early '70s. Though he passed away in 1999 at the age of 83, Moondog, a new book by Robert Scotto makes clear the artist's lasting influence. A festival featuring Moondog's work (along with Beethoven and Bach, among others) will take place this weekend at NYC's Advent Lutheran Church.

Tomorrow night, Itzhak Perlman joins members of the Perlman Music Program for gifted young musicians in concert at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Included on the program is Steve Reich's Triple Quartet, along with Mozart's G Minor Quintet for Viola and Strings and Tchaikovsky's Souvenir de Florence. Nonesuch released the world premiere recording of the Reich piece, performed by Kronos Quartet, in 2001.

In today's Kansas City Star, music writer Paul Horsley recommends that runners prepping for a long-distance run, like this weekend's Kansas City Marathon, avoid the common mistake of training to disposable Top 40 hits ("simple carbs"). He recommends instead a healthy dose of "high energy" compositions to motivate through the long haul. On his list of Top 10 training tunes: Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and Philip Glass's score to Koyaanisqatsi.

Steve Reich recently participated in a special event at Manhattan's Aish NY as part of the Daniel Pearl World Music Days—an international music celebration promoting tolerance, inspired by the legacy of journalist Daniel Pearl. At the October 9 event, which included a discussion with Reich, the composer played a recording of Daniel Variations, a piece he wrote in Pearl's memory. The recording is set for release on Nonesuch early next year.

The closing night of New York City Center's 2007 Fall for Dance festival, on October 6, featured the Elisa Monte Dance company's signature work, Treading (1979), set to Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians. This was the fourth annual festival, which kicks off City Center's season with low-priced tickets to see some of the world's greatest dance companies.

Steve Reich recently spoke with Pitchfork; read the interview now at pitchfork.com.