Erik Hall: Music for 18 Musicians

A landmark of minimalism, re-interpreted by multi-instrumentalist and composer Erik Hall in a live performance with accompanying spatial audio installation. Erik Hall’s 2020 re-imagining of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians is as adventurous as it is reverent, supplanting the original instrumentation for Hall’s own keyboards, guitars, and synthesizers. It won the Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and Pitchfork described it as “shrewd, prismatic, organic… a minimalist standard freshly thrilling to revisit.” In conjunction with the 50th Anniversary of the piece’s NYC premiere—as well as Reich’s 90th birthday—Hall returns to the iconic work for his Studio 9 debut, leveraging the room’s immersive Meyer Sound audio system to present his one-man multi-tracked rendition in a transportive new light. Hear the prepared pianos, Hammond organ, electric guitars, and analog synths of Hall’s Michigan home studio in kaleidoscopic surround sound, while he executes a grouping of the instruments live on stage—a distilled, in-person exhibition of the recording’s soundscape. Erik Hall is a musician and composer in Michigan. He is best known for his multi-instrumental recordings and live performances of contemporary classical works, which have been featured by The Wire, Pitchfork, NPR Music, Bandcamp Daily, WNYC New Sounds, and The New York Times. His 2020 re-creation of Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians won the Libera Award for Best Classical Record, and his 2023 interpretation of Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato followed with a nomination in the same category. Erik has composed or arranged music for Chicago’s Grammy-winning Third Coast Percussion, NYC’s Grammy-nominated Metropolis Ensemble and Sandbox Percussion, and for feature films. He has recorded and toured with NOMO, Wild Belle, His Name Is Alive, In Tall Buildings, and Lean Year, appearing at Lollapalooza, Coachella, Pitchfork Music Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, CONAN, and The Tonight Show.