Steve Reich Concert Series
- Date
- From 02.12.2017 to 03.12.2017
- Place
- Auditorium
Drawing inspiration from Steve Reich’s Drumming, featured in the “Being Modern, the MoMA in Paris” exhibition and which originally premiered at that New York museum in 1971, the auditorium will host the celebrated composer for a weekend of performances.
Considered a pioneer of minimalist music, Steve Reich will join musicians to speak about and present a series of concerts devoted to his major works. Daytime and evening lecture-cum-performances will showcase this movement in music, which began in the United States.
The programme
-
SATURDAY 2 DECEMBER 2017
-
8:30 p.m. : Grand Concert
Clapping Music (with Steve Reich)
Quartet (2013)
2 vibraphones and 2 pianos
-
INTERMISSION
Drumming (1970-71)
1. Part One
Bongos tuned but stand-mounted and played with drumsticks
2. Part Two
Three marimbas and a marimbaphone with two female voices
3. Part Three
Three glockenspiels with a piccolo and whistling
4. Part Four
All instruments tuned to the Western diatonic scale
Closing speech made by Steve Reich
-
-
SUNDAY 3 DECEMBER 2017
-
3 p.m.: Concert commented by Steve Reich
Music for Pieces of Wood (1973)
5 claves
Mallet Quartet (2009)
2 marimbas (à cinq octaves), 2 vibraphones
Proverb (1995)
-
5:30 p.m: Concert commented by Steve Reich
Pulse (2015)
2 flutes, 2 clarinets, piano, electric bass guitar, 4 violins, 2 altos
Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ (1973)
2 glockenspiels, 4 marimbas, 1 metallophone, 3 female voices (two sopranos, one alto), and a digital organ
Artists
Steve Reich, honoured composer (present on 2 and 3 December)
Colin Currie Group (29 musicians)
Synergy Vocals (6 singers)
-
7:00 p.m.
Fondation Louis Vuitton auditorium
Screening of a documentary on Steve Reich.
Entry: free on presentation of your ticket for the Steve Reich tribute concert on 2 and 3 December 2017
STEVE REICH, PHASE TO FACE
Documentary by Eric Darmon and Franck Mallet
France - 2009 - Mémoire Magnétique productions, Arte France
With his baseball cap glued to his head, resembling an eternal student, Steve Reich is relaxed… and in a hurry.
His composition style evolved as part of the repetitive music of the 1960s, and his work still appeals today with its unique sense of rhythm and its heady melodies, blending elements of Bartók, Stravinsky and Debussy, as well as jazz, traditional music and Hebrew cantillation.
We accompany one of the foremost composers of our time on a boundary-breaking journey: from Tokyo to Rome, with the German Ensemble Modern and the Italian Ars Ludi, Coro Ha-Kol and Quartetto Prometeo, the Automne en Normandie Festival in France, the American Theatre of Voices and the legendary Steve Reich Ensemble, the Manchester Velodrome in the UK, where Reich premiered his new work “2x5”, and the New York group Bang on a Can.
-
The artists
Steve Reich
Colin Currie
Colin Currie Group
Colin Currie (“the world’s finest and most daring percussionist”, Spectator) and Owen Gunnell are regular recital partners, and perform together as a duo and in the Colin Currie Quartet. They also perform in the Colin Currie Group, a virtuosic ensemble that specialises in the music of Steve Reich and whose performances have been hailed by the composer as “the best I’ve ever heard”. Colin and Owen have appeared together at major venues and festivals such as the BBC Proms, Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Paris Présences Festival, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, NCPA Beijing, Tokyo Opera City and Nagakute Cultural Center. Together they have premiered new chamber works by Steve Reich, Kevin Volans, Rolf Wallin, Anna Meredith, Freya Waley-Cohen and Ben Nobuto.
A major highlight of recent seasons has been the critically acclaimed world premiere performances of Steve Reich’s Traveler’s Prayer, which the group took on tour to the Concertgebouw, the Royal Festival Hall, the Elbphilharmonie, the Philharmonie de Paris, Carnegie Hall, Cal Performances and Tokyo Opera City. The group also created Steve Reich’s Quartet in 2014 (for two pianos and two vibraphones), dedicated by Reich to Colin Currie. Since the premiere of Quartet at London’s Southbank Centre, the group has given multiple performances of this work, including across the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia and America.
Highlights of the Group’s 2023/24 season included performing Drumming as part of the Steve Reich celebration at Radio France’s Festival Présences and the UK premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s New England Etudes at London’s Southbank Centre, a work co-commissioned by Colin Currie. They will make their Italian debut in the 2024/25 season at the Conservatorio di Milano at the invitation of the historic Società del Quartetto di Milano.
The Colin Currie Group performs regularly at London’s Southbank Centre and have appeared in concert at major halls and festivals worldwide, including at the Shanghai MISA Festival, the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore, Paris’ Cité de la Musique and Fondation Louis Vuitton, the Cologne Philharmonie, Rotterdam’s De Doelen, the Helsinki Festival, the Macau Festival, Saffron Hall and the Barbican Centre and made their concert debut at the 2019 Edinburgh International Festival performing Gubaidulina Glorious Percussion with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Dausgaard.
The group recently released their third album on Colin Currie Records, Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, which has received outstanding reviews and was selected as Editor’s Choice by Gramophone magazine. This follows their previous release of Live at Fondation Louis Vuitton, their highly successful debut album of Drumming from 2018 and their release of Quartet on Nonesuch in 2019.
