Different Trains

Pulsing with rhythmic energy and unfolding with hypnotic clarity, Steve Reich’s music has reshaped modern classical, electronic and popular music around the world.

To celebrate the 90th birthday of this pioneering composer, we shine a spotlight on his groundbreaking work with a performance of Different Trains with a cutting-edge audio installation by spatial audio designers Loss﹥﹤Gain with Colin Currie Group, offering an exploded 360° insider’s view of some of Reich’s most admired compositions, revealing the inner structures of each piece in fresh and startling detail. 

Schubert Fantasie in F minor for piano four hands, D. 940
Joseph Havlat & Jâms Coleman (piano)

This late-night concert brings together two works written 160 years apart, tracing very different kinds of journeys. From an inward voyage in Schubert to a starkly documented passage through twentieth-century history in Reich.

Ligeti Quartet return The Fire Station to play a full suite of music by Anna Meredith and Steve Reich alongside new music by three of the region’s most adventurous composers, Peter Brewis, Ross Millard & Faye MacCalman.

Ligeti Quartet brings the now-vintage sound world of Steve Reich’s iconic Different Trains into the present day via the Soundscape system at Kings Place.

Alongside this poignant work the Quartet presents tracks from their new album Nuc, a collaboration with award-winning composer Anna Meredith. In addition to strings, Nuc features the sounds of synths, drum machines, birdsong, an MRI scanner, brass and hums, proving the durability of the string quartet in the twenty-first century.

A ‘mixtape’ format intersperses movements from Christian Mason’s Tuvan Songbook with other types of ‘song’ - the translucent modernism of Ruth Crawford Seeger, the electronic and pop aesthetic of Tanya Tagaq, and Beethoven's Cavatina, the highly original 5th movement of his Op 130 quartet.

For their first appearance in Denmark, the Ligeti Quartet present three iconic works for string quartet with strong visual elements. Different Trains is presented with Beatriz Caravaggio's film, produced by ArsVideo Producciones in cooperation with the BBVA Foundation for the Museum of Fine Arts in Bilbao in 2016.

The Ligeti Quartet present a gripping picture of modern classical music at The Leadmill. Two 20th century classics - Steve Reich’s Grammy award-winning Different Trains and George Crumb’s iconic Black Angels for electric string quartet - feature alongside the rock-riff influenced minimalism of John Adams; John Zorn’s explosive collage of jazz, American folk, punk, modernist and classical music; and Tanya Tagaq’s Sivunittinni - inspired by Inuit throat singing.

The Ligeti Quartet's second concert as Quartet in Residence at the University of Sheffield.