The upcoming celebration of Steve Reich’s music at Koerner Hall on October 6 feels epic– the return to Toronto of a master who has been visiting the city since 1976. At that time, I was an undergraduate composition student at the University of Toronto, and we were treated to a master class with Reich that I will never forget – mesmerized as I listened to him talk about a different way of approaching music, about slowing down one’s perception of the musical changes that were taking place.
He gave the example of a Bach fugue: things happen so quickly that it can be difficult to hear everything in the midst of the complexity unfolding, especially with just one listen. Reich was exploring another way of composing: using processes such as what he called “phasing” to allow musical changes to evolve gradually over time. The result was a different way of listening and of becoming aware. Those are my words, but that’s how I understood what he was saying, and it has stayed with me ever since. As has the memory of the spontaneous eruption of applause and cheers after the performance of Drumming during that 1976 concert, everyone rising en masse to their feet. The excitement was palpable.
The 1970s were a heady time of exploration, laying the groundwork for much of what we experience as normal in today’s contemporary music scene.
I wrote more about that first encounter with Reich’s music, and the influence he has had on Toronto’s music scene in The WholeNote, Vol. 21, No. 7, April 2016. The story was called “In Step with Time” and he was here at Soundstreams’s invitation on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
And here he is back again continuing his lifetime of composing, performing, and influencing generations of musicians. There is something extraordinary for me in that 50-year arc: from sitting as a young composition student listening to Reich describe a radically different way of hearing music, to being present half a century later as Toronto celebrates a lifetime of music that grew from that spirit of exploration.
So yes, I can’t wait to mark this moment in time by getting to hear his mesmerizing music again.
Oct 6 7:30: Soundstreams/Faculty of Music, University of Toronto. Celebrating Steve Reich at 90. Steve Reich: In All Your Ways for 14 instruments (North American premiere); Music for 18 Musicians; Clapping Music (special presentation featuring Russell Hartenberger). Koerner Hall, 273 Bloor St. W.
