The Desert Music – Steve Reich

Steve Reich’s The Desert Music is an impressive choral and orchestral work that connects poetic language with the threat and uncertainty of its time. The title and lyrics are drawn from William Carlos Williams, whose words Reich brought together into one vast, breathing soundscape, based on Williams’ collection The Desert Music and Other Poems.

There is, however, more hidden behind that landscape: Reich deliberately chose texts from Williams’ post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki period, a time when ‘the bomb’ hung like a shadow over the world. The music reveals how human dreams and desires collide with the questions raised by our conscience—a tension that forms the heart of The Desert Music. ‘The desert’ remains ambiguous: a physical place, an inner emptiness, or a vision of the future.

Led by the Hague concert hall Amare, the ensembles NKK, Klang, HIIIT, New European Ensemble, and Het Muziek join forces with the Royal Conservatoire to celebrate his 90th birthday with a performance of his magnum opus, The Desert Music.