Steve Reich Quotes

#1. What I don't want to do is to go and buy a bunch of exotic-looking drums and set up an Afrikanische Musik in New York City.

Steve Reich

#2. As a matter of fact, I personally would much rather hear Perotin than Mozart.

Steve Reich

#3. I'm not making any absurd comparisons between myself and Bach, but I aspire to that, that my music will have the legs to survive whatever context it finds itself in.

Steve Reich

#4. I discovered that the most interesting music of all was made by simply lining the loops in unison, and letting them slowly shift out of phase with other.

Steve Reich

#5. In serial music, the series itself is seldom audible ... What I'm interested in is a compositional process and a sounding music that are one in the same thing.

Steve Reich

#6. Up to the age of 14 I had not heard a note of anything before 1750, never heard a note of Bach, never heard anything after Wagner, and never heard any real jazz.

Steve Reich

#7. I write music, and I want people to listen to it and care about it and have it make some difference in their lives. When I'm fortunate for that to happen, then of course I feel very, very good about it.

Steve Reich

#8. All music does come from a time and place. I was born and raised in New York. I moved out of New York, but it's inside of me and it will be inside of me until they put me in a box in the ground.

Steve Reich

#9. I've learned over the years that geography is not that important, except that I seem to work better in the country than the city. I get more done. There's just less happening around me, and I have more time and concentration to work on music.

Steve Reich

#10. All great music is contemporary. If it's still alive and kicking, then it's contemporary. If it fades away, it was a period piece. It had its moment, and that was it.

Steve Reich