Steve Reich tickets

Ludwig Wittgenstein may as well have been talking about minimalism when he wrote, “How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life!” Composer Steve Reich took the matter to heart, setting the philosopher’s exclamation to music and filling an entire piece with it. That piece, Proverb, kicks off a night dedicated to some of Reich’s most striking and gorgeous works, all of which find remarkable riches in their deceptively simple phrasing. The composer again takes inspiration from literature in Jacob’s Ladder, imagining his notes as angels ascending and descending with a rolling series of climbs, descents, rests, and vistas that Reich calls “a connection between heaven and earth.” His Music for Ensemble and Orchestra, which has been called “perhaps Reich’s most purely beautiful work” by The Guardian, was debuted at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2018 as part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s centennial season. And he returns with another LA Phil commission, the brand-new In All Your Ways.

Artists: Los Angeles Philharmonic & Brad Lubman, conductor