On Sunday, 21 September, Steve Reich was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 58th International Festival of Contemporary Music of the Biennale di Venezia.

From the website of the Biennale Musica 2014:

“Steve Reich is the charismatic exponent of a new and original way of understanding music that has been embraced enthusiastically by a vast audience and has had a powerful influence on younger generations in America and abroad. His language, vibrating with a rhythmic pulsation that carries a powerful emotional impact, has been enriched over time, thanks to his refined and cultured experimentation, by experiences borrowed from various musical traditions that have inspired compositions now considered as contemporary ‘classics’.”

Previous UE composers who have received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement include Luciano Berio (1995), Friedrich Cerha (2006), György Kurtág (2009), Wolfgang Rihm (2010) and – most recently – Pierre Boulez (2012).