Saturday, June 11, 2022

Ms Rozzall

Mmm. A Saturday Today feature on Steve Reich.

So someone at Today invented "Reesh". Even this must be new to Reich. Here's an interview with Steve in The Globe and Mail from 2016, on the occasion of his 80th birthday. 

So here's a question I've always wanted to ask you. Why is your name pronounced Steve Reich (rysh) rather than Steve Reich (rike)

It's an anglicization. I'm not sure what my grandfather said when he came here, but my father always said Reich, as though it were "sh," so that's what I said, and then I started going to Germany, and realized it was Reich "rike" – my son insists on that pronunciation, with the k. So I'm a "rysh" and he's a "rike." I think it was common for Jews who had that last name to change the pronunciation when they got to America.

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