'It's been insane," sighs Steve Reich, grinning as he settles down in his chair. Reich celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this month, and it's had him shuttling from New York to London and back for numerous concerts of his works. Now he is in Tokyo, where he spoke with The Japan Times, as a recipient of the Praemium Imperiale for his contribution to the arts.
Reich's influence on modern music has been immense. Born in New York in 1936, Reich entered the musical limelight in the 1960s, rebelling against his immediate musical forebears and pioneering what later came to be known as minimalism.
Not one to be easily pinned to labels, Reich has since moved along his own idiosyncratic, genre-defying path, broadening his harmonic and instrumental scope and assimilating influences -- from Balinese gamelan, modal jazz, Ghanaian drumming, and Hebrew cantillation.