Steve Reich is an American composer who was born in 1936. He builds music from short patterns that repeat and shift a little at a time. He helped to start a style called minimalism. He turned 90 in October 2026. The best first piece for a child is “Clapping Music,” which two people perform with their hands alone.
Quick facts
- Born: 1936, in New York City
- Lives: in the United States
- Era: Contemporary
- Plays: percussion and keyboards
- Known for: “Clapping Music,” Music for 18 Musicians, Different Trains, and Drumming
The life in short
Reich was born in New York. His parents separated when he was a baby, and he grew up in New York and California. As a small boy, he rode trains across the country between his father’s home and his mother’s.
At 14, he heard three kinds of music that changed his course: Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, the music of Bach, and jazz. He took up the drums and studied with Roland Kohloff, who went on to be the timpani player of the New York Philharmonic.
He studied philosophy at university. Then he studied music at the Juilliard School in New York and at Mills College in California.
In 1965, he was working with tape recorders in San Francisco. He set two machines to play the same short recording of a voice. One machine ran a tiny bit faster than the other. The two copies drifted apart, and new rhythms appeared that no one had planned. Reich called this “phasing,” and he built many pieces on it.
Back in New York, he formed his own group in 1966 to play his music. To pay the bills, he and the composer Philip Glass ran a small moving company for a while.
In 1970, he went to Ghana in West Africa to study drumming. Later he studied the gamelan music of Bali and the chanting of Hebrew scripture. All three shaped his music.
Music for 18 Musicians, from 1976, made him known far beyond the small world of new music. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2009. He turned 90 on October 3, 2026, and a new piece, In All Your Ways, was first played that year.
What the music sounds like
A steady pulse runs through most of Reich’s music. Short patterns repeat. One player shifts a pattern by a beat or adds a note, and the whole sound changes.
He likes marimbas, vibraphones, pianos, clapping hands, and voices used as instruments. The music is bright and busy. The changes come a little at a time, so a listener can hear each one happen.
Pieces to play first
“Clapping Music.” Two people clap the same pattern of 12 beats. One keeps going. The other jumps ahead by one beat every few rounds. After 12 jumps, the two are back together.
“Pulses,” from Music for 18 Musicians. The opening of the piece. Pianos, marimbas, voices, clarinets, and strings pulse on a chain of chords. Each chord swells and fades for the length of one breath. The whole piece lasts about an hour, so start with the first five minutes.
Electric Counterpoint, third movement. One guitarist plays along with a recording of many guitars. It is fast and bright.
Drumming, Part 1. Players on tuned bongo drums build one pattern, a note at a time.
Different Trains, first movement. A string quartet plays with recorded voices and train whistles. The rise and fall of each spoken phrase becomes a tune for the instruments.
What parents need to know
The first part of Different Trains is about the American trains of Reich’s childhood. The second part is about the trains that carried Jewish people to the camps in Europe in those same years. Reich is Jewish, and he has said he would have ridden those trains if he had been born in Europe. Save the later parts for an older child.
How to clap “Clapping Music”
- Learn the pattern. Say “one-two-three, one-two, one, one-two,” with one silent beat after each group. Clap on the numbers.
- Clap it together with a partner until it is steady.
- One person keeps the pattern going. The other starts the pattern one beat early.
- When that feels steady, the second person moves one more beat ahead.
It is hard, and that is part of the fun.
Things to do together
Find the pulse. Play “Pulses.” Tap the beat on your knees. Raise a hand each time the chord changes.
Two machines. Play the same short song on two phones. Start one a moment after the other. Listen to how the two copies rub against each other.
Build a pattern. Tap one sound. Repeat it and add a second sound. Keep adding one sound at a time until you have a pattern of eight.
Voice tune. Say “Where are my shoes?” five times in the same way. Listen for the tune in the words, and then hum it.
Print and play
Fill in a composer study notebook page for Reich. For help with counting, read rhythm names explained for parents. For two more composers who build with patterns, read Philip Glass for kids and John Adams for kids. For more composers at work now, read living composers kids can hear today.
For more composers by era, see classical composers for kids.
Sources
Checked in November 2026.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica. (n.d.). Steve Reich.
- Hollywood Bowl. (n.d.). Steve Reich.
- IRCAM. (n.d.). Steve Reich.
- Nonesuch Records. (2025). Steve Reich.
- Rayfield Allied. (2026). Steve Reich.
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Use it with your kids
Print a listening page, a practice chart, or a composer fact sheet. Or try a tool, such as the composer timeline or the piece picker.