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To mark the 90th birthday of Steve Reich, Staged Variations sees three ensembles tackle the composer’s seminal Music for 18 Musicians. 

The U.S. première of Richard Ayres’s No. 42 In the Alps was musically delightful, visually whimsical, and all-around hilarious.

“I want to be able to hear the process happening throughout the sounding music”, Steve Reich wrote in his 1968 essay Music as a Gradual Process. His music of the 1960s, from tape pieces such as It’s Gonna Rain to instrumental works like Piano Phase, employed phasing and looping techniques. These compositions are some of the first examples of both process music and downtown musical minimalism.

Alarm Will Sound is a 20-member band whose name has become synonymous with new and emerging contemporary classical work. Whether the music is playful of spiteful, dramatic or lighthearted, Alarm Will Sound nails the performance – just as they did Saturday night in Zankel Hall.Opening with Journeyman, a New York première by John Orfe, Alarm Will Sound immediately made their presence known.