Steve Reich

Steve Reich found his signature idea by accident. Working with tape recorders in the 1960s, the New York-born composer set two identical loops of a street preacher's voice running and heard them slip gradually out of alignment, creating shifting patterns nobody had composed. That discovery, first captured in the tape piece It's Gonna Rain, became the seed of his style: steady pulse, small repeating patterns, and changes so gradual you can hear the music think.

Born in 1936, he studied philosophy at Cornell before music, and later spent a summer studying drumming in Ghana, an experience that deepened his feel for interlocking rhythm. For years he presented his work with his own group of musicians in lofts and galleries before concert halls caught up.

Start with Music for 18 Musicians, an hour of glowing, interlocking pulse and a welcoming doorway into new music generally. Then hear Different Trains, where string quartet lines grow out of recorded voices recalling wartime rail journeys.