Steve Reich is the subject of a feature-length special on BBC Radio 6 Music's The Tom Robinson Show, for which the composer spoke about his career and his latest work, Radio Rewrite. "His work with repetitive patterns and rhythms has been hugely influential across mainstream as well as experimental music," says the show. NPR Music looks back on the 50th anniversary of one groundbreaking piece: "It's Gonna Rain is just one example of Reich's broad musical lexicon that over five decades has influenced countless musicians in classical, electronic and even popular music."
Composer Steve Reich is the subject of a feature-length special that aired this weekend on BBC Radio 6 Music's The Tom Robinson Show. Reich spoke with the show's host about his career and his latest work, Radio Rewrite, which references two songs by Radiohead.
"Steve was one of the pioneers of minimalist music in the mid to late 60s," says the show by way of introduction. "He pioneered the use of tape loops to create phasing patterns, and used simple processes to explore differing musical concepts. His work with repetitive patterns and rhythms has been hugely influential across mainstream as well as experimental music."
You can listen to the complete program for the next month at bbc.co.uk; Steve’s segment begins at 30 minutes in and runs for a full two-and-a-half hours through to the end of the show.
Reich is also the subject of a piece on NPR Music that looks back on the 50th anniversary of the composer's groundbreaking work It's Gonna Rain.
"Sometimes great things are born from happy accidents," says NPR's Tom Huizenga. "Fifty years ago today in San Francisco, composer Steve Reich premiered It's Gonna Rain, his first official piece. The music, made by manipulating a recording of a Pentecostal preacher, opened a door to a new way of composing for Reich and helped launch his career. He says the creation of the work came about by chance as he was fiddling with two identical tape loops of the preacher that got out of synch with each other."
Huizenga later concludes: "The idea of notes and phrases closely interlocking, pulsating and slowly evolving is one of the central tenets of what would come to be called minimalism. It's Gonna Rain is just one example of Reich's broad musical lexicon that over five decades has influenced countless musicians in classical, electronic and even popular music."
Read what Reich has to say of the "accidents" behind the piece at npr.org.
You can download It's Gonna Rain on the 1987 Nonesuch release Early Works in the Nonesuch Store, where you'll find Reich's Nonesuch catalog, including his latest album, Radio Rewrite.
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