“As he approaches his 80th birthday in October, composer Steve Reich has earned the right to rest on his laurels,” writes Joshua Kosman in Saturday’s (9/3) San Francisco Chronicle. “But Reich isn’t resting…. Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony plan to do their part this week, including Reich’s orchestral piece ‘Three Movements’ on the program for the Wednesday, Sept. 7, gala season opener, adding the Pulitzer Prize-winning Double Sextet to the lineup on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 9-10, and then coming back on Sunday, Sept. 11, for a tribute concert featuring appearances by Eighth Blackbird and the Kronos Quartet…. [He is] working to complete a large orchestral work called ‘Twenty Soloists and Orchestra,’ for a consortium of commissioners … scheduled to premiere in 2018…. ‘I am primarily a composer for large or small chamber ensembles…. With this one, I feel like I finally figured out how to write for orchestra…. I started with the first-chair string players and their stand partners, and made them soloists. Then you add two flutes, two oboes, and so on—and there’s the ensemble that I’ve been working with for years!’ ”
Posted September 7, 2016
