Steve Reich marks his 90th year with a new work inspired by the Book of Proverbs

On 28 August 2026 the Colin Currie Group gave the world premiere of In All Your Ways, a new piece by the American composer Steve Reich, at the Usher Hall during the Edinburgh International Festival. The all-Reich programme came five weeks before the composer's 90th birthday on 3 October and launched a season of celebrations in which the new score travels to Amsterdam, Toronto, New York's Carnegie Hall, Berkeley, London's Barbican, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and, in March 2027, the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The work, about 18 minutes long, is written for Reich's classic large ensemble of doubled flutes and clarinets, mallet percussion, two pianos and string quartet. Although it has no singers, its title comes from the opening words of Proverbs 3:6, and a four-note figure that 'sets' those words recurs throughout. Reich's publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, explained that the piece moves through four rhythmic sections and four harmonic areas, each in a different key, and that it follows two recent works in which Reich set religious texts for voices. It was co-commissioned by thirteen festivals, orchestras and concert halls. Reviews were warm though not unanimous: The Scotsman awarded five stars, while theQR, giving four, admired the ensemble but found Reich's repetitive style an acquired taste.

Reich, born in New York in 1936, is one of the founders of minimalism, and pieces such as Drumming and Music for 18 Musicians changed the course of late twentieth-century music. His Jewish heritage runs through much of his output, from Tehillim, his setting of Psalms in Hebrew, to Different Trains, which contrasts his own childhood train journeys across America with the trains that carried Jews to their deaths in Europe. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2009 for Double Sextet.