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Steve Reich: ‘We all wish art could counter the direction of US politics. But it can’t’

Now 88, the minimalist composer has reissued his life’s work. He answers your questions about Bowie, the Grateful Dead, spirituality – and his complicated friendship with Philip Glass

Much later, when I had musical training at Cornell [University], Juilliard [conservatoire] and Mills College and was totally dedicated to performing whatever I wrote for my own ensemble, I was able to get four pairs of very high-quality bongo drums and then three marimbas, which wiped me out financially. Would you like to come over and see what I’m doing?” The following year, he wrote Two Pages for Steve Reich, basically taking a set of patterns, repeating them and making them longer, which was the breakthrough for him in the way phasing was for me. I started by singing psalms, which got me into extreme, constantly changing meters – undoubtedly influenced by Bartók and Stravinsky – and then out popped a whole different way of rhythmically organising music.

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