Music of Silence

by Petar PLAMENOV

2 October (Sunday), 2011
AmBul
National Palace of Culture
Hall 5, 16:00
Free entrance

Address: Sofia, 1 Bulgaria Sqr.
Phone: 02 916 63 69
Phone: 02 916 63 68

AmBul Festival is a forum for American and Bulgarian music. AmBul established festival presenting new and unfamiliar works by American and Bulgarian composers and meeting place for collaboration between artists from Bulgaria and the USA, and prestigious platform for young artists.

Reich was born Oct. 3, 1936, New York, N.Y., U.S. He majored in philosophy at Cornell University. After musical study with Darius Milhaud and Luciano Berio, he pursued interests in Balinese and African music, learning drumming in Ghana. His early music explored the process of simultaneous repeated patterns gradually slipping out of phase ("process music"). With Terry Riley (b. 1935) and Philip Glass, he was among the most prominent of the early "minimalists" of the 1970s. His early works include Drumming (1971) and Music for 18 Musicians (1976); later works such as The Desert Music (1983) and Different Trains (1988) show a considerably expanded compositional vocabulary.




Like Philip Glass, John Adams, and Terry Riley, Steve Reich belongs to a group of composers known as "minimalists," who write music based largely on patterns of repetition. Minimalism came into prominence when many American composers tired of what they considered the over-rigorous, emotionally bankrupt style of music that was held up as an example when they were students. As a descriptive label, "minimalism" can be ineffectual—since each minimalist composer has his own distinct voice—but the movement has become a prominent and important musical style.

"Starting from an extremely radical point with Piano Phase," says the 44-year-old composer, "I've gradually been adding more instruments, increasing my harmonic vocabulary, and increasing the timbral variety in order to enrich the music. I've begun to see that changes I've made over the years which I consider progress other people could view as a step backwards into traditional Western thinking. But -- there's this one big 'but' -- it’s not a replay of Stravinsky or Bartok in any way.



The basic vocabulary is mine."Steve Reich was the creator of "phase" and "pulse" music, both of which rely on the gradual alteration of repetitive rhythmic patterns to create subtle changes in musical texture. Concerned with the manipulation of aural perception, he directed the listener to focus on one of the many rhythmic patterns occurring concurrently in his music by reinforcing one pattern through changes in dynamics and timbre. Although he was responsible for the invention of the "phase-shifting pulse gate," a device used to aid performers in measuring minute rhythmic changes, Reich avoided the use of electronic instruments in performance. Most of his pieces feature large percussion ensembles with the addition of standard concert string and wind instruments and voice. His later works required orchestras and large vocal ensembles.

Reich's "basic vocabulary" of dominant rhythms, repetition, static forms, slow changes and audible processes is not his alone, though. It's shared by all the composers of what's been labeled "trance music," a style which Reich and Philip Glass in particular have, over the last several years, made not only famous but popular.

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