Steve Reich turns 90 as new composition premieres and career retrospective opens

New compositions and creative shifts

American composer Steve Reich turned 90 on 3 October 2026, marking more than 60 years of active composition. In August 2026, his latest work, "In All Your Ways," received its world premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival, performed by the percussion ensemble Colin Currie Group. The 18-minute instrumental piece draws its title and inspiration from Proverbs 3:6 and represents an adjustment in his usual compositional approach. Reich noted that after drafting more than half of the score at a fast tempo, he inserted slow movements directly into the existing material, performing what he described as structural surgery rather than writing strictly forward from beginning to end. He continues to compose from his home in New York, working through recent physical setbacks that include a fall and a broken wrist.

It was exciting to do something that I hadn't done before. It was a challenge, and I think the solutions to that worked very well.

Early tape experiments and phasing

Born in New York in 1936, Reich studied composition under Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio after attending the Juilliard School, while initially supporting himself as a furniture mover. As a teenager, his musical outlook shifted after hearing Igor Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring" at age 14, alongside the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and Charlie Parker. In late 1964, he recorded street preacher Brother Walter in San Francisco's Union Square Park speaking on Noah and the flood, creating the 1965 tape piece "It's Going to Rain." By shifting identical recorded loops against one another, he established the technique of rhythmic phasing. A 1970 journey to Ghana to study with Ewe drummers produced "Drumming" for 12 musicians. When Reich toured Europe in 1972, post-serial audiences expressed skepticism, and a 1973 Carnegie Hall performance of "Four Organs" provoked audience protests that forced conductor Michael Tilson Thomas to shout counts over the noise.

Music for 18 Musicians and crossover reach

Reich expanded his instrumentation in 1976 with "Music for 18 Musicians," an hour-long piece scored for strings, woodwinds, percussion, and female voices. The 1978 recording sold 100,000 copies, an uncommon commercial figure for experimental concert music. The composition drew listeners from outside classical spheres, including David Bowie, who encountered it in a New York rock club, and Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood. Reich also composed "Clapping Music" after watching a flamenco performance in Brussels, opting to write a piece solely for human hands after tiring of transporting 1,000 kilograms of instruments between tour stops.

The most beautiful gift is that my music is performed all over the world.

Sacred texts and international staging

During the mid-1970s, Reich reconnected with his Jewish background, traveling to Jerusalem to record traditional psalm chanting by Yemenite communities. Those recordings shaped his 1981 vocal composition "Tehillim," which set Hebrew psalms for four women's voices and orchestra. Subsequent projects included "The Desert Music," setting poetry by William Carlos Williams, "Different Trains," which incorporated spoken recollections from Holocaust survivors, and "The Cave," examining perspectives on Abraham from Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans. His compositions also established a regular presence in contemporary dance through Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, whose company Rosas debuted in 1982 with "Fase," set to four early Reich works, followed in 1998 by a full staging of "Drumming."