X-ing 32nd Street performs Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians

For the 2013-14 season, Crossing 32nd Street has been performing  Steve Reich’s seminal work Music for 18 Musicians. This work, which can be described as an aura of perpetual propulsion is an evening-length sixty minute piece of music exploring some of Reich’s trademark process-music techniques: build-ups, melodic shifts, pulsing swells, and melodies generated out of resultant patterns. It really has become one of the go-to works for exemplifying minimalism of the later twentieth century.

A special note about our performance and the space: we performed in front of a piece created by artist Sol LeWitt. LeWitt happens to be one of the early “minimalist” in visual arts, which of course influenced to art music.

Performances of this work included:

  • Paradise Valley Community College
  • Phoenix Art Museum – First Friday event
  • Arizona State University – Minimalisms Festival (Contemporary Music series)

Photos from Phoenix Art Museum performance (1/03):

PhxArt1 PhxArt2 PhxArt3 PhxArt4

Photos from Paradise Valley performance (10/18):

Music For 18 Musicians Music For 18 Musicians