Steve Reich (1936) is one of the most influential composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Along with Philip Glass, La Monte Young, and Terry Riley, he is considered a founding figure of musical minimalism. A central element of his work is the gradual phase shift of rhythmic layers. He discovered this technique while experimenting with tape recorders in the 1960s. It gave rise to compositions such as It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Piano Phase (1967), which changed the way people viewed what music could be.

He also drew inspiration from outside the European classical tradition – he studied West African drum music in Ghana, took an interest in gamelan in Bali, and explored Jewish liturgical cantillation. The result is music that is both strictly structured and vividly pulsating. Works such as Music for 18 Musicians (1976) and Different Trains (1988) are now considered canonical works of contemporary classical music.

In Slovakia, Reich’s music was performed by the Cluster Ensemble. Under the artistic direction of Ivan Šiller and Fero Király, the ensemble premiered several of Reich’s works in Slovakia between 2009 and 2019, including the piece for six pianos called Six Pianos (1976) at a legendary concert held on June 15, 2009, at the now-defunct MADA piano store on Medená Street in Bratislava.

for microphones, amplifiers, speakers, and performers

In his piece *Pendulum Music*, American composer and founder of musical minimalism Steve Reich allows freely suspended microphones to swing above speakers. The moment the microphones are directly above the speakers, an audible sound occurs—feedback. The back-and-forth movement of the microphones creates a repeating pattern, the energy of which is gradually dissipated by natural forces until all the tones converge at a single point, a singularity.

The concert is presented by a temporary group of performers formed at the invitation of the ooo association.

1968, 10 min.