October 26, 2009

Steve Reich Talks about his Jewish Music at JMF

Pulitzer Prize-winning Composer Steve Reich Talks about his Jewish Music (with music examples from the composer's collection) -- a unique interview by fellow Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lang.

On Sunday, November 8th at 3 PM
at the Center for Jewish History
15th West 16th Street, NYC

The Jewish Music Forum presents a unique interview with Pulitzer Prize-Winning Composer Steve Reich about his Jewish Music, with music examples from the composers own collection. Mr. Reich will be interview by fellow Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, David Lang. The Jewish Music Forum is free to the public. Reservations for the Steve Reich Talk will be taken on a first-come first-served basis. Call 212-874-4513.
Steve Reich was recently called "our greatest living composer" (The New York Times), "America’s greatest living composer." (The Village VOICE), “ ...the most original musical thinker of our time” (The New Yorker) and “… among the great composers of the century” (The New York Times). "There's just a handful of living composers who can legitimately claim to have altered the direction of musical history and Steve Reich is one of them," states The Guardian (London). Steve Reich, a traditional Jew, has composed a considerable body of important Jewish works, both on Hebrew texts and music with Jewish themes.

After his formal training, at Cornell, Juilliard and with Luciano Berio at Mills College, Reich not only studied drumming at the Institute for African Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra, and Balinese Gamelan, Semar Pegulingan and Gamelan Gambang, but also studied the traditional forms of cantillation (chanting) of the Hebrew Scriptures in New York and Jerusalem. Steve Reich is a traditional Jew. Among his compositions are a number of Jewish-based works, including his compelling 1981 settings of Hebrew Psalm texts, Tehillim.

Mr. Reich's 1988 piece, Different Trains, marked a new compositional method, in which speech recordings generate the musical material for musical instruments. The New York Times hailed Different Trains as "a work of such astonishing originality that break through seems the only possible description....possesses an absolutely harrowing emotional impact." The piece, recorded by the Kronos Quartet, received a 1990 Grammy Award for "Best Contemporary Composition."

The Cave, Steve Reich and Beryl Korot's music theater video piece exploring the Biblical story of Abraham, Sarah, Hagar, Ishmael and Isaac, was hailed by Time Magazine as "a fascinating glimpse of what opera might be like in the 21st century." Of the Chicago premiere, John von Rhein of The Chicago Tribune wrote, "The techniques embraced by this work have the potential to enrich opera as living art a thousandfold....The Cave impresses, ultimately, as a powerful and imaginative work of high-tech music theater that brings the troubled present into resonant dialogue with the ancient past, and invites all of us to consider anew our shared cultural heritage."

In addition to receiving the 2009 Pulitzer Prize in Music, Mr. Reich was awarded The Polar Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of music in May 2007. The prize was presented by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden. The Swedish Academy said: "...Steve Reich has transferred questions of faith, society and philosophy into a hypnotic sounding music that has inspired musicians and composers of all genres." In 2006, the same year Mr. Reich’s 70th Birthday was celebrated by performing organizations around the world with festivals and special concerts. Steve. Reich won the Preamium Imperial Award in Music, an important international award given by Crown Prince Hitachi in Tokyo in areas of the arts not covered by the Nobel Prize.

The Jewish Music Forum, is a project of the American Society for Jewish Music, with additional support from the American Jewish Historical Society.

The American Society for Jewish Music (ASJM) serves as a broad canopy for all who are interested in Jewish music. Its members include cantors, composers, educators, musicologists, ethnologists, historians, performers and interested lay people – as well as libraries, universities, synagogues and other institutions. The Society sponsors a number of important programs and projects which provide greater access to Jewish music. In addition, the Society produces conferences, seminars, workshops and master classes at which scholars, students and others may benefit from the musical expertise of the Society's members.

With offices at the Center for Jewish History in New York City, as an affiliate of the American Jewish Historical Society, the American Jewish Historical Society has established and maintains links similar institutions in Jewish communities throughout the world, and has developed strong ties with students and faculty members at American universities and seminaries. The American Society for Jewish Music is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization funded through membership dues, grants and corporate and individual contributions.

The American Society for Jewish Music (ASJM), which recently celebrated its 100th Anniversary can trace its roots back to several earlier Jewish Music Societies and associations, first in Europe and then in America. Among the European models were the Kinnor Zion Society (1902-08) in St. Petersburg and the Society for Jewish Folk Music (1902-18), also in St. Petersburg and elsewhere within the Russian Empire. After the Revolution, members of these groups published their compositions under the imprint of Juwal, Publication Society for Jewish Music (later called Jibneh) with offices in Tel Aviv and Berlin. Predecessors of the ASJM in the United States included Mailamm (Makhon Eretz Yisraeli L'-Mada'ey ha-Musika) (1932-39), founded by Miriam Zunser and some émigré members of the early European groups; and the Jewish Music Forum (1939-63), founded by Abraham Wolf Binder, which in turn became the Jewish Liturgical Society of America (1963-74). In 1974 the latter group was reorganized as the American Society for Jewish Music, Inc., under the direction of its first President, Albert Weisser.

The American Society for Jewish Music presents and produces a variety of programs that are presented each season for the general public at the Center for Jewish History in New York City. Its core programs include live concerts; the Charlie Bernhaut Collection of Jewish and Cantorial Music; its academic collegiums, the Jewish Music Forum; its scholarly journal Musica Judaica, and a new online Review section; a digitized collection of scores from the Society’s St. Petersburg roots; ASJM Matters, a periodic newsletter distributed on the Internet; a composition competition to stimulate the composition of new music on Jewish themes; and three important searchable databases.

Posted by jmwc at October 26, 2009 03:45 PM