MUSIC: Steve Reich At 90 @ The Glasshouse

Image by Jeffrey Herman

Steve Reich – who turns 90 years old on 3rd October – is almost unique in the world of composition and experimental music, both for the extent of his influence and the breadth of his innovations and compositions. While it would be a stretch to call him a household name, nonetheless he’s recognised by music fans outside the world of experimental composition and technical innovation, working with, influencing and being sampled by everyone from David Bowie to The Orb, Terry Riley to Brian Eno. His work since the sixties has revolutionised the use of rhythms, tape loops, voices and guitars in a contemporary classical context. His compositions have embraced politics, his Jewish ancestry, philosophy and more, whilst also managing to be witty and playful at times. In short, Reich fully deserves the epithet legend. So it’s only fitting that the Glasshouse is hosting a large programme of performances of Reich’s works on the weekend of his birthday, taking place across the whole complex from Friday 2nd-Sunday 4th October.

Curated by Colin Currie – the Scottish percussionist, bandleader and Reich specialist – the weekend will feature more than a dozen Reich pieces, along with an installation and some talks. Friday sees the Colin Currie Group and Royal Northern Sinfonia perform a programme of The Desert Music, featuring four of Reich’s most percussion-led works: Clapping Music, Runner, The Desert Music and Double Sextet. Later that evening, The Colin Currie Quarter perform Drumming Part 1 in a programme which also includes Julia Wolfe’s Dark Full Ride.

Radio Rewrite, which will be performed by Colin Currie with the Royal Northern Sinfonia on Saturday, is Reich’s response to Radiohead and sets rock music in a minimalist context in a programme that also includes Pulse and Eight Lines. Also on Saturday is a performance by the Colin Currie Group of Reich’s most famous piece, Music Fotr Eighteen Musicians, as well as Music For Pieces Of Wood and Quartet.

The centrepiece of Sunday’s line-up is a performance of Reich’s pivotal Different Trains (a reflection on the Holocaust) which will see Currie and the Royal Northern Sinfonia working with The National’s guitarist Bryce Dessner. The collaboration will also see four Dessner works performed. Later that evening, Dessner and Currie will collaborate with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra for a performance of several more essential Reich works – Three Movements, Variations For Winds Strings & Keyboards, Electric Counterpoint and The Four Sections.

Aside from these ticketed performances, there will be free talks and performances on the Glasshouse concourse, Including Quartet, Music For Mallet Instruments Voices & Organ, and talks with Currie and Dessner. Also worth checking out will be a 360° sound installation in The Northern Rock Foundation Hall titled Phase | Pattern | Pulse – Inside the Music of Steve Reich, which present several Reich works in a spatial audio / lighting experience.

For full details of what’s happening across the special weekend, check out the Glasshouse website here.