Steve Reich: Pulse / Quartet International Contemporary Ensemble

• Steve Reich (1936 - ):
• 1 Pulse 14:25
• 2 Quartet: I. Fast 06:45
• 3 Quartet: II. Slow 03:58
• 4 Quartet: III. Fast 05:53
• Total Runtime 31:01

Info for Steve Reich: Pulse / Quartet

Steve Reich's Pulse / Quartet is performed by the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). An artist collective committed to transforming the way music is created and experienced—and Quartet (2013) is played by the Colin Currie Group, an ensemble led by percussionist Colin Currie that specializes in the music of Steve Reich; these are also the ensembles that gave the world premiere performances of the respective works.

Reich says, "Pulse, for winds, strings, piano and electric bass, was completed in 2015 and was, in part, a reaction to Quartet, in which I changed keys more frequently than in any previous work. In Pulse I felt the need to stay put harmonically and spin out smoother wind and string melodic lines in canon over a constant pulse in the electric bass and or piano. From time to time this constant pulse is accented differently through changing hand alternation patterns on the piano. All in all, a calmer more contemplative piece."

He continues, "Quartet, when mentioned in the context of concert music, is generally assumed to mean string quartet. In my case, the quartet that has played a central role in many of my pieces (besides the string quartet) is that of two pianos and two percussion. It appears like that or in expanded form with more pianos or more percussion in The Desert Music; Sextet; Three Movements; The Four Sections; The Cave; Dance Patterns; Three Tales; You Are (Variations); Variations for Vibes, Pianos and Strings; Daniel Variations; Double Sextet; and Radio Rewrite. In Quartet, there is just this group alone: two vibes and two pianos.

"The piece is one of the more complex I have composed. It frequently changes key and often breaks off continuity to pause or take up new material. Though the parts are not unduly difficult, it calls for a high level of ensemble virtuosity. The form is one familiar throughout history: fast, slow, fast, played without pause. The slow movement introduces harmonies not usually found in my music."

Steve Reich has been called "our greatest living composer" (New York Times) and "the most original musical thinker of our time" (New Yorker). His path has embraced not only Western Classical music, but the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz. "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. In April 2009 Steve Reich was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Double Sextet. Nonesuch has released twenty-three Steve Reich albums, beginning in 1985 with The Desert Music and including two box sets; his most recent album was Radio Rewrite (2014).

"It is tempting to label this music merely as minimalism, but to do so would be slightly misleading because there is so much happening in the midst of the pulse patterns and the layering melodies and sounds. Pulse/Quartet is a brilliant recording by a composer though he's been around for many years is hitting his stride. The music is profound, enchanting, accessible and engaging." (AllAboutJazz)

"Pulse felt like a rapturous extended song—one with enough confidence to end with the feel of reverie, as opposed to Reich’s traditional headlong-rush climax" (Guardian)

International Contemporary Ensemble
Colin Currie Group

The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE)
is an artist collective that is transforming the way music is created and experienced. As performer, curator, and educator, ICE explores how new music intersects with communities across the world. The ensemble’s 35 members are featured as soloists, chamber musicians, commissioners, and collaborators with the foremost musical artists of our time. Works by emerging composers have anchored ICE’s programming since its founding in 2001, and the group’s recordings and digital platforms highlight the many voices that weave music’s present.

A recipient of the American Music Center’s Trailblazer Award and the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, ICE was also named the 2014 Musical America Ensemble of the Year. The group currently serves as artists-in-residence at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ Mostly Mozart Festival, and previously led a five-year residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. ICE was featured at the Ojai Music Festival from 2015 to 2017, and at recent festivals abroad such as gmem-CNCM-marseille and Vértice at Cultura UNAM, Mexico City. Other performance stages have included the Park Avenue Armory, The Stone, ice floes at Greenland’s Diskotek Sessions, and boats on the Amazon River.

New initiatives include OpenICE, made possible with lead funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which offers free concerts and related programming wherever ICE performs, and enables a working process with composers to unfold in public settings. DigitICE, a free online library of over 350 streaming videos, catalogues the ensemble’s performances. ICE's First Page program is a commissioning consortium that fosters close collaborations between performers, composers, and listeners as new music is developed. EntICE, a side-by-side education program, places ICE musicians within youth orchestras as they premiere new commissioned works together; inaugural EntICE partners include Youth Orchestra Los Angeles and The People's Music School in Chicago. Summer activities include Ensemble Evolution at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, in which young professionals perform with ICE and attend workshops on topics from interpretation to concert production. Yamaha Artist Services New York is the exclusive piano provider for ICE.

Colin Currie
Hailed as “the world’s finest and most daring percussionist” (Spectator), Colin Currie is a solo and chamber artist at the peak of his powers. Championing new music at the highest level, Currie is the soloist of choice for many of today’s foremost composers and he performs regularly with the leading orchestras and conductors.

A dynamic and adventurous soloist, Currie’s unrivalled commitment to commissioning and creating new music was recognised in 2015 by the Royal Philharmonic Society who awarded him the Instrumentalist Award for his achievements in 2014. From his earliest years Currie forged a pioneering path in creating new music for percussion, winning the Royal Philharmonic Society Young Artist Award in 2000 and receiving a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2005. Currie has premiered works by composers such as Steve Reich, Elliott Carter, Louis Andriessen, HK Gruber, James MacMillan, Anna Clyne, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Jennifer Higdon, Kalevi Aho, Rolf Wallin, Kurt Schwertsik, Simon Holt, Alexander Goehr, Dave Maric, Julia Wolfe and Nico Muhly. Looking ahead, in the coming seasons Currie will premiere new works by Andrew Norman, Ross Edwards and Mark-Anthony Turnage.

Currie is Artist in Residence at London’s Southbank Centre where he was the focus of a major percussion festival Metal Wood Skin in autumn 2014, featuring world premieres of Steve Reich’s Quartet with the Colin Currie Group, Anna Clyne’s Secret Garden and the UK premieres of James MacMillan’s Percussion Concerto No.2 with the Philharmonia Orchestra and Louis Andriessen’s Tapdance with Asko-Schoenberg Ensemble. Other highlights included a solo percussion recital for school children, The Big Percussion Workshop Day, and foyer performances with percussion students from London conservatoires.

The Colin Currie Group
is one of the world’s leading percussion ensembles, specialising in the music of Steve Reich. Led by Currie, whom Reich himself has described as “one of the greatest musicians in the world today” (Herald Scotland, March 2013), the Colin Currie Group is a vibrant, dynamic and virtuosic ensemble comprising the UK’s eminent young percussionists.

Colin Currie assembled the group for the first time in 2006 when the BBC asked him to curate a late-night event to celebrate Reich's music. Following its five-star debut at the BBC Proms, the group went on to perform a sell-out event at London’s Southbank Centre. That concert was attended by the composer, who afterwards commented: “I think this man has taken this piece into another generation, yes, but beyond that into a finer level of performance and has opened it up to me as a kind of revelation.”

Since then, and with Reich’s personal endorsement, Currie and his ensemble have taken on the role of ambassadors for Drumming. The group has performed the work to great acclaim at many major UK venues and festivals, and more recently at international venues including Tokyo Opera City and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.

In November 2013 the group gave its first performance of Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians in a sold-out Royal Festival Hall, in the presence of the composer; the performance was described as “technically impeccable and musically overwhelming” (Guardian) and “simultaneously static and bursting with event: a joyful conundrum” (Independent).

Looking ahead to the 2014/15 season, the Colin Currie Group returns to Southbank Centre to premiere a new work by Steve Reich, Quartet, for two pianos and two vibraphones, before touring to the Cologne Philharmonie, Cité de la Musique Paris, Prague, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Cardiff and Glasgow.

Booklet for Steve Reich: Pulse / Quartet