Conductor Alan Pierson transformed Steve Reich’s landmark composition “Music for 18 Musicians” into a three-and-a-half-hour durational experience at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, Spin reported. Titled “Music for 18 Musicians: Staged Variations,” the October production celebrated the work’s 50th anniversary and Reich’s 90th birthday by presenting the piece three times in succession, with each performance entrusted to a different generation of musicians.
Pierson, whose relationship with the piece dates to his student days at the Eastman School of Music, conceived the three cycles as a human lifespan. The original Steve Reich Ensemble brought decades of authority, students from the Manhattan School of Music’s Tactus program delivered an exuberant, physically demanding interpretation, and Pierson’s own Alarm Will Sound closed with a reflective, ritualistic reading. In between, a new commissioned work by Caroline Shaw provided a generational transition, revealing the remarkable community that has grown around Reich’s music.
A Performance Honoring Anniversaries
- A three-and-a-half-hour durational performance of “Music for 18 Musicians” at the Park Avenue Armory honored its 50th anniversary and Steve Reich’s 90th birthday.
- The event was structured as a human lifespan, with three distinct generations of musicians performing the piece in succession.
- The production aimed to reveal the work’s underlying simplicity and place the audience inside its musical organism.
A Literal Cycle, a Lifespan in Sound
The very first flash of inspiration was to honor the 50th anniversary of “Music for 18 Musicians” by staging it as a durational, cyclical, evolving experience, Pierson explained. The aspects of the piece that fired him up were its cyclical structure—its end mirrors its beginning—its emotional polymorphousness, and its status as a cultural icon. “So many artists and fans of my generation grew up listening to it obsessively on a loop,” he said, drawing inspiration from other durational events like Taylor Mac’s “24-Decade History of Popular Music.”
The Armory was the only venue for such an ambitious undertaking. “New York was clearly the place to celebrate this anniversary,” Pierson stated, noting Reich’s status as a New York institution whose development was inextricably linked to the city. He needed a big, flexible space to express Reich’s musical organism and put the audience in its midst, which led him to the Park Avenue Armory’s vast Wade Thompson Drill Hall. Initially, he considered playing the piece 24 times, but logistical surveys with players settled on three as the shortest duration that could effectively communicate his vision.
Generations of Interpretation
Once the three-performance format was set, Pierson envisioned a clear emotional arc. The first performance would be a classic rendition by the original ensemble; the second, an exuberant staging by the students; and the third, a reflective reading by Alarm Will Sound. “The overall arc would be like the shape of a life: from youth, to the passionate energy of early adulthood and finally to a kind of transcendent peace,” he described.
Each ensemble brought a distinct character. The Reich Ensemble, featuring original members Bob Becker and Russ Hartenberger, offered a “magical kind of calm confidence.” Alarm Will Sound provided a mastery born from growing up in a musical world transformed by Reich. Pierson envisioned an unprecedented physical staging for them, one that defied the conventional wisdom that musicians needed to be as close as possible to keep the piece on rails. “Even I wasn’t totally sure my staging vision was possible—Steve was convinced that it wasn’t!” he admitted.
To achieve this, Pierson partnered with Matt Ward at the Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program. The students began work in October 2025, rehearsing for a year, which Pierson notes was a lengthy and deep process of memorizing and internalizing the music until it became second nature. “Watching them do this incredibly virtuosic, physical staging, and simultaneously giving the smoothest, most consistent, stable, and finessed performance of the piece I’d seen … it still blows my mind,” Pierson reflected. “The staging actually seemed to make the music easier for them to play.”
The Simplicity Beneath the Complexity
For Pierson, the project was also a long-held ambition to reveal the work’s underlying simplicity. His first encounter with the piece was as a grad student at Eastman, where he was part of a collective, Ossia, that performed it shortly after the first complete score was published. “My first reaction was: the downbeats are not where I thought they were! My second reaction was: wow, it all looks so complicated!” he recalled.
He had fallen in love with the “radical, powerful simplicity” of the piece’s structures, but the detailed score unintentionally obscured that simplicity. This realization resurfaced as he prepared for the Armory production. It suddenly hit me that we really needed that simple, clear map of Music for 18 that I’d dreamed of all those years earlier, he said.
Pierson Plans Next Durational Production
His work with Alarm Will Sound continues. As for the future, Pierson is curious about what the next durational production might be, building on the lessons learned at the Armory.
