Performance

Music for 18 Musicians

3 upcoming performances in New York

Steve Reich’s *Music for 18 Musicians* (1974–76) is a landmark of American minimalism, built from pulsing cycles that pass between voices and instruments with near-clinical precision. New York heard it early: the first public unveiling took place at The Town Hall in 1976, linking the work to the city’s downtown-to-midtown musical migration. At Park Avenue Armory, Alan Pierson brings together Alarm Will Sound, members of the Steve Reich Ensemble, and Manhattan School of Music musicians across three generations. Its jazz-adjacent drive comes less from solos than from ensemble timekeeping as a shared discipline.