‘Good music is good music, and most music is not!’ As he hits 90, master minimalist Steve Reich looks back — SkimNews
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- Steve Reich turns 90 on October 3, 2026, with celebrations already underway, including the world premiere of his new ensemble piece "In All Your Ways" at the Edinburgh festival and a late-night BBC Proms concert.
- Reich is recovering from a recent fall that broke a rib and damaged his wrist, limiting his piano work to "a minute or two" and frustrating attempts at new composition.
- Reich's minimalist innovations — developed alongside Philip Glass, Terry Riley, and La Monte Young — have been sampled by David Bowie and the Orb, and recorded by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood on "Electric Counterpoint."
- Reich's landmark 1967 piece "Piano Phase" led to his development of the "phasing" technique, discovered when he played against a tape recorder and found the human performer functioned as an "organic force" rather than a machine.
- Reich still calls his "Music for 18 Musicians" (1976) one of his finest works, demonstrating how its mallet instruments create "constant rapid chugging" while clarinets function "like waves washing over the grid."
- Scottish percussionist Colin Currie is now the most active promoter of Reich's music, headlining many Reich at 90 events after first impressing the composer 20 years ago with a performance of "Drumming."
- Reich has mixed feelings about most of his orchestral output ("Three Movements is not a bad piece. It's not a great piece") and disavows opera entirely, though he sees "great material" in his two video-operas with wife Beryl Korot.
Why it matters: Reich's compositional techniques — phasing, tape loops, pulsing repetition — moved from avant-garde obscurity into the bedrock of contemporary classical, electronic dance, and film scoring, underpinning work by artists who may never know his name. With the composer openly noting "I'm not going to be around for ever," figures like Colin Currie are taking over performance duties for a body of work that institutions and audiences will need active advocates to sustain.
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