© 2025. The Trustees of Indiana University
Copyright Complaints
1229 East Seventh Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
News, Arts and Culture from WFIU Public Radio and WTIU Public Television
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Some web content from Indiana Public Media is unavailable during our transition to a new web publishing platform. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Our Terre Haute 95.1 FM signal is temporarily off the air while we address a technical issue with the FAA. Thanks for your patience — you can still listen anytime at wfiu.org.

Composer Steve Reich at ISU's Contemporary Music Festival

Do you think of yourself as a minimalist?

As a what ?

A minimalist.

Oh, never! Never, never, never.

From his early taped speech pieces It's Gonna Rain and Come Out to his digital video opera Three Tales, Steve Reich's style of minimalist music has embraced aspects of Western classical music, and the structures, harmonies, and rhythms of non-Western and American vernacular music, particularly jazz.

His techniques include using tape loops to create phasing patterns in his early compositions, and the use of simple, audible processes to explore musical concepts.

Reich's compositions, marked by their use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm and canons, have significantly influenced contemporary music.