A Short Steve Reich Program Reveals Composer’s Boldness

An unofficial Steve Reich primer took place at the Skirball Center Sunday, as part of its Spring Concert Series. Though short, it touched on the various aspects of Reich’s aesthetics, fueled by West African and Indonesian influences, early music and the all-American groove imperative, as well as a strong experimentalist leaning.

The jubilant, shimmering wall of sound titled “Vermont Counterpoint” is one of Reich’s “solo” pieces, in which an instrumentalist adds to a layered tapestry of recorded parts. In this case, flutist Dorothy Stone deftly conducted a lively conversation with herself, live and taped, suggesting a labyrinthine digital loop system.

The contemplative vocal piece “Proverb,” written in 1995 and reminiscent of Reich’s “Tehillim,” builds and deconstructs a simple quote from Wittgenstein, “How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life.” Conductor Neil Stulberg led a skilled quartet of vocalists over the somber percolations of vibraphones and synthesizer pads.

Ending the program was the afternoon’s centerpiece, “Different Trains,” written in 1988 for the Kronos Quartet and here played with precision and gusto by the Armadillo Quartet. Here, again, the live players mimic and play off of taped sounds--string parts and fragmented bits of language in a unique piece that manages to reflect on the Holocaust, conceptual music and the train song tradition of bluegrass and rock ‘n’ roll. All in a day’s work for a bold American composer.