@Barbican Music: Johann Johannsson - The Sun's Gone Dim opens with a bare, falling scale, taken almost directly from many passages of Arvo Part and then attempts to use it as harmonic background to a looped robotic voice. I find this treatment of such initially beautiful material closer to mixing and dejaying than substantial composition and is ultimately insulting to those composers that made this material available to us, in this case, Arvo Part.

I'm encouraged by such a celebration of Reich's music at the same time discouraged by the choice of putting Hauschka, Richter, Pallett, etc. as examples of musicians influenced by Steve Reich because despite the fact that they might like his music and both of their musics are pattern based, the very seed that makes all the difference in the world between these two genres of music is missing in Hauschka, Richter, Pallett, etc. for better or for worse. So it feels deeply wrong to be lumping these two radically different musics on to the same program and listing them as influenced by Steve Reich. Sure they may like Reich's music or have performed it a million times like Richter, or be motivated and inspired by Steve Reich, but unless there is actual physical evidence in their music that shows me the connection it really only shows that they didn't really get Steve Reich or really actually like him enough to put the more important elements of his music into theirs. Basically their music is pattern based but with the important process elements deleted, which means like any other pop music. Composers who I am glad to see in this festival are Lang, Wolfe, and Gordon. These composers actually learned something from Reich and you can hear it in their music. It would have been better to search out other composers like Marc Mellits, who actually did the first transcription of Reich's Music for 18 Musicians, Robert Davidson, who studied with Terry Riley, and any other composers who actually take Reich seriously other than use loops or patterns in their music which is really not at all novel if their is not some kind of underlying process that goes beyond what we hear in pop music every day.

stunning stuff. thanx.

thanks for this, such an inspiring podcast

And I think its particularly fantastic how you chose to play Music for a Large Ensemble right at the end - such a perfect ending! I actually heard stuff in this interview which Reich had never said before in other interviews - the whole composing in Afternoons to evenings thing. Fantastic.

This is amazing!