Steve Reich To Curate THREE GENERATIONS At Carnegie Hall, 4/6

This spring, Steve Reich, holder of the 2016-2017 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer Chair, returns to Carnegie Hall to curate Three Generations-a four-concert series in Zankel Hall that explores how the language of composition changed from the mid-20th century to the present day by pivoting from serial atonal music toward a more harmonic and rhythmic style led by Reich and his peers. The four concerts trace the development of a new music-from the pioneering generation of Reich,Terry Riley, Philip Glass, John Adams, andArvo Pärt-to David Lang, Julia Wolfe, andMichael Gordon, the composers associated with the Bang on a Can collective, and on to younger innovators such as Bryce Dessner and Nico Muhly, who both have world premieres as part of the series. Featured performers include Ensemble Signal, Bang on a Can All-Stars, JACK Quartet, and more. These performances include a conversation with Reich and some of the featured composers on the series. On the April 6 program, Reich talks with Nadia Sirota, host of Q2 Music'sMeet the Composer podcast. For complete program information, please see below.

The series kicks off on Thursday, March 30 at 7:30 p.m., with a program that focuses on the pioneering first generation of composers with the rarely performed version of Terry Riley's revolutionary In C without the pulse suggested by Reich back in 1964 and commonly used ever since. The resulting work introduced minimalism to the broader public. The program also features John Adams's Shaker Loops, a staple in the minimalist movement, using small repeating melodic fragments, a technique popularized by Steve Reich in his tape music.

Celebrated works by Reich and his peers Arvo Pärt and Philip Glass are featured in a performance on Thursday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m. The program features Medieval chant-like melodic lines and notes resembling ringing bells in works by Pärt, while Glass's incandescent String Quartet No. 5 fuses rhythmically propulsive passages with slower, more subtle ones. Reich's Grammy Award-winningDifferent Trains is a riveting work in which strings imitate the sounds of speech samples drawn from recorded interviews and train sounds. This powerful musical documentary speaks to the composer's childhood and the tragic experience of Jews in Europe during the 1940s. This concert will be broadcasted live on Classical 105.9 FM WQXR, and streamed on wqxr.org and carnegiehall.org/wqxras part of the Carnegie Hall Live radio and digital series.

On Wednesday, April 19 at 7:30 p.m., featured artists include the Bang on a Can All-Stars and theJACK Quartet performing works by David Lang, Julia Wolfe, and Michael Gordon, the trio of composers associated with creating the revolutionary Bang on a Can collective. The evening features David Lang's cheating, lying, stealing, Julia Wolfe's Lick and Early that summer, and culminates with Michael Gordon's Yo Shakespeare.

The series culminates on Wednesday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. with a program showcasing the new generation of young, eclectic, and absolutely fearless composers. Nico Muhly and Bryce Dessnerboth unveil world premieres during this concert, performed by an ensemble of young cutting-edge performers who are not averse to taking risks on stage.

The 2016-2017 season marks Reich's 80th birthday, with over 400 performances in more than 20 countries across the globe celebrating his music and legacy. Two new works received world premieres in fall 2016: Pulse (co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall), and Runner, which was co-commissioned and premiered at London's Royal Ballet accompanied by new choreography by Wayne McGregor (and which will have its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall in November 2017). Several presenters have announced special concert series and residencies to honor his anniversary, including Lincoln Center, San Francisco Symphony, the Barbican in London, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Tokyo Opera City, in addition to Carnegie Hall.

Artist Information
Steve Reich has been called "America's greatest living composer" (Village Voice), "the most original musical thinker of our time" (The New Yorker), and "among the great composers of the century" (The New York Times). Reich's musical legacy has been influential on composers and mainstream musicians all over the world. His music is known for steady pulse, repetition, and a fascination with canons; it combines rigorous structures with propulsive rhythms and seductive instrumental color and also embraces harmonies of non-Western and American vernacular music (especially jazz). His studies have includEd Balinese gamelan, African drumming (at the University of Ghana), and traditional forms of chanting of the Hebrew scriptures, in addition to his studies at Cornell University, The Juilliard School, and Mills College with Luciano Berio.

Reich's music has been performed by major orchestras and ensembles around the world, including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics; the San Francisco Symphony; the London, Sydney, Boston, and BBC Symphony Orchestras; the London Sinfonietta; Kronos Quartet; Ensemble Modern; Ensemble intercontemporain; Bang on a Can All-Stars; Alarm Will Sound; and eighth blackbird. Several noted choreographers have created dances to his music, such as Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jirí Kylián, Jerome Robbins, Wayne McGregor, Justin Peck, and Christopher Wheeldon.

Reich's Different Trains and Music for 18 Musicians have each earned Grammy Awards, and Double Sextet won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. He was awarded the Gold Medal in Music by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2012. He was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, as well as a member of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts. His honors include the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo, the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm, the BBVA Award in Madrid, the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale, the 2016 Nemmers Prize in Music from Northwestern University, as well as the Schuman Prize from Columbia University, the Montgomery Fellowship from Dartmouth College, and the Regents' Lectureship at the University of California at Berkeley. He has been awarded honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Music in London, The Juilliard School, the Liszt Academy in Budapest, and the New England Conservatory of Music, among others.

A native New Yorker, Reich graduated with honors in philosophy from Cornell University in 1957. For the next two years, he studied composition with Hall Overton, and from 1958 to 1961, he studied at The Juilliard School of Music with William Bergsma and Vincent Persichetti. He received his master's degree in music from Mills College in 1963, where he worked with Luciano Berio and Darius Milhaud.