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Steve Reich turns 90 on October 3, 2026, with a new composition at the center of a worldwide birthday season. In All Your Ways, an 18-minute work for large ensemble, premiered in August at the Edinburgh International Festival with the Colin Currie Group. The occasion links a career spanning more than six decades to music that is still being written, performed and heard anew.
What Steve Reich is making at 90
Reich’s birthday-season centerpiece, In All Your Ways, is an 18-minute instrumental work for large ensemble. It premiered in August 2026 at the Edinburgh International Festival, performed by the Colin Currie Group. Reich’s official announcement describes a subsequent tour that includes Amsterdam, New York, London and Paris. The composer’s official site names birthday-season programs at Carnegie Hall, The Glasshouse International Centre for Music, the Barbican and Philharmonie de Paris.
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The announcement describes the 2026–2027 season as a worldwide celebration of Reich’s 90th birthday. Dates, programs and ticket availability can change, so consult the relevant venue’s current listing before making plans.
How Reich’s music works—and what to listen for
Reich’s official biography describes his contribution as helping move composition away from extreme complexity and toward new ways of reconsidering pulsation and tonal attraction. Rather than treating that description as a single formula for his entire catalog, it helps to listen for recurring techniques: repeated patterns, a steady pulse and gradual change. A small shift in timing, harmony or texture can accumulate until a pattern that first seemed fixed begins to sound different.
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The biography highlights works that trace the breadth of that practice:
- It’s Gonna Rain uses recorded speech and looping as musical material.
- Drumming develops rhythmic patterns over an extended span.
- Music for 18 Musicians makes shifting patterns and pulse central to the listening experience.
- Tehillim and Different Trains show how the catalog reaches beyond a narrow account of Reich’s early pattern-based work.
For a first listen, focus less on waiting for a conventional melody and more on how one repeated figure changes against another. The interest lies in hearing the transformation happen, often by degrees.
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The early experiences Reich recalls
In a September 22, 2026 interview with The Guardian, Reich recalled that hearing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring as a teenager was “completely life-changing” and said his decision to become a composer began when he was 14. That is Reich’s account of the formative moment, as reported in the interview.
The same interview recounts his early experiments with two Wollensak tape recorders and his practice of playing against tape in Piano Phase. The headline quotes Reich’s sharp musical judgment: “Good music is good music, and most music is not!” Both statements belong to the interview’s portrait of his perspective, rather than serving as a complete explanation of the music.
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Two ways to encounter the birthday season
The anniversary offers a choice between hearing the music in a hall and exploring a broad selection at home. The official announcement establishes the named concert programs, but a venue’s listing is the place to verify local details. For recorded music, the official site describes a substantial career-spanning collection.
| Route | What it offers | Best suited to | What to verify |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live performance | Birthday-season programs at venues including Carnegie Hall, The Glasshouse, the Barbican and Philharmonie de Paris; the new work’s tour also includes Amsterdam, New York, London and Paris. | Listeners who want to experience Reich’s music in performance, including the new ensemble work where it appears on a program. | Venue, date, program, performing ensemble, accessibility information and current ticket availability on the venue’s listing. |
| Recorded collection | Steve Reich: Collected Works, a 27-disc set spanning six decades, with two booklets and first recordings of Jacob’s Ladder (2023) and Traveler’s Prayer (2020). | Listeners looking for a wide survey to explore at home, rather than a single concert program. | Edition and current retail availability. |
A broad listening entry point in one collection
Nonesuch released Steve Reich: Collected Works on March 14, 2025. The set’s 27 discs cover six decades, and it includes two booklets and first recordings of Jacob’s Ladder (2023) and Traveler’s Prayer (2020), according to the official Steve Reich site. Its scale makes it a broad survey rather than a concise introduction; listeners who prefer a small starting point can begin with one of the works named in Reich’s official biography and follow the patterns they hear.
For more of Reich’s own reflections, his biography also notes Conversations (2022), a book of conversations with artists including Stephen Sondheim, Michael Tilson Thomas, Brian Eno, Richard Serra, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker and Jonny Greenwood.
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- Runner Musik Für Ensemble Und Orchester
- Product Type: Abis Musik
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