Steve Reich

Stephen Michael Reich is an American composer who is known for his contribution to the development of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich describes this concept in his essay, "Music as a Gradual Process", by stating, "I am interested in perceptible processes. I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music." For example, his early works experiment with phase shifting, in which one or more repeated phrases plays slower or faster than the others, causing it to go "out of phase." This creates new musical patterns in a perceptible flow.

3 October 1936

Born on the same birth day (3 October): Alain-Fournier • Angélica Gavaldón • Darrin Fletcher • Donald Sild • G. Love • Giovanni Battista Beccaria • Giovanni Comisso • Jack Hodgins • Jonathan Isaac • Marianne Timmer • Townsend Harris

Born in the same month (October 1936): C. Gordon Fullerton • Charles Goodhart • Dick Vermeil • Hiroo Kanamori • Jovan Pavlović • Julius L. Chambers • Masako Nozawa • Michael Landon • Polina Astakhova • Tony Lo Bianco