Steve Reich Quotes

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.