It has to be a culturally encouraging sign that last week’s hot ticket was the Philobolus avant garde dance troupe at the North Park Birch Theatre (two shows, courtesy of the La Jolla Music Society) and Wednesday’s (Jan. 18) equally coveted ticket for the Steve Reich concert at UC San Diego’s Prebys Concert Hall.

All three events sold out, leaving disappointed devotees clamoring for spare tickets before show time. The UCSD Music Department and the university’s edgy ArtPower performance series jointly sponsored and promoted their concert that boasted Reich’s participation as a celebration of the Pulitzer Prize winning composer’s 75th birthday.

Even if his natal anniversary actually happened in October of 2011, there is no reason a composer of his stature should not enjoy a year’s worth of musical festivities at age 75. And Wednesday’s exhilarating performance of Reich’s seminal “Music for 18 Musicians” mounted by New York’s Bang on a Can All-Stars and UCSD’s red fish blue fish ensemble provided ample proof for such a claim.

If you took Igor Stravinsky’s ballet “Les Noces” with its four raucous pianos,” Olivier Messiaen’s transcendent operatic monologue of St. Francis preaching to the fishes, and a Javanese gamelan orchestra and tossed them into a giant musical blender, the result would be something like Reich’s hour-long “Music for 18 Musicians.”

And, of course, it would not—because Reich is a composer sui generis. One of the pioneers and a touchstone of musical Minimalism, Reich has a subtle way of letting in complexity through the back door through his lavish, canny orchestration and his vigorous layering of repeated musical ideas. Once begun, “Music for 18 Musicians” never stops.

Like a continent-spanning expedition under an arduous guide, in the land of Reich, only sissies need breaks between movements to catch their collective breath.

Take that, all you prolix, multi-movement Mahler symphonies! For this opus, Reich calls for a platoon of percussion instruments, notably four pianos, three marimbas, two xylophones, and a vibraphone, as well as four vocal soloists and a few winds and strings.

It opens with mildly insistent but slowly changing chordal iterations on the marimbas and pianos, ebbing and flowing with hypnotic allure as concise but forceful solo themes—often stridently announced from the pianos’ upper range—enter and rove among the orchestra.

Even the vocalists are used percussively, adding a muted Swingle Singers harmonic scat whose volume they controlled by moving their mics closer, then further away from their lips. If you are imagining that a stage full of loud, pulsing instruments and singers would need a conductor, you are not thinking in the world of Reich.

Like a period Baroque ensemble, this group took important cues from one of the lead players, Bang on a Can clarinetist (and composer) Evan Ziporyn, whose purposeful nods and the occasional elevation of his mighty bass clarinet signaled transitions within the piece.

Strategically placed sound monitors helped to keep everyone together, certainly a necessity for the poor pianists lined up against the rear of the stage and those mallet-wielding percussionists facing each other rather than stage center. Red fish blue fish Artistic Director Steven Schick sat patiently at the side of the Prebys Hall stage while “Music for 18 Musicians” worked its irresistible enchantment, stepping up for a star turn on the maracas towards the conclusion of the work.

An alumnus of Bang on a Can and impressario of UCSD’s impressive, far-ranging Wednesdays @ 7 new music series, this had to be a “dream come true” moment for him.

The program’s first half offered two other Reich works, including “Electric Counterpoint 3” for electric guitar and recorded tape of multiple electric guitar tracks.

On stage, Bang on a Can musician Mark Stewart offered a precise, emphatic realization of the densely layered score from 1987 that called to mind the piquant buzz of Indian sitar playing. At least in my experience, nuance and precision are not associated with electric guitar, but Stewart proved the inadequacy of my exposure. Guitar idol Pat Metheney had provided the recorded portion of the piece.

“Clapping Music” from 1972 opened the evening with Shaker simplicity. Four musicians—Reich, Schick, Ziporyn and David Cossin—stood in a semi-circle and executed intricate rhythms with nothing but hand clapping. Like one of those Frank Gehry scribbles on a cocktail napkin that illustrates the concept of a new architecture project, “Clapping Music” contains the art of Steve Reich in distilled essentials.

It was the perfect appetizer to a musical feast of Reich.

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