Composer Steve Reich (left) with Andrew Burke, CEO of the London Sinfonietta

World-renowned minimalist composer Steve Reich (seated on the right) addresses a near-capacity audience in the Jubilee lecture theatre in March 2013

During a rare visit to the UK, a world-renowned American composer told an enthralled audience at the University of Sussex yesterday (7 March) how he came to write a work about the events surrounding the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Steve Reich is one of the pioneering composers (along with Philip Glass) of what is known as “minimalist” music.

During a special lecture on campus, he discussed WTC 9/11, a string quartet composed almost a decade after two planes flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, just four blocks from his home in New York.

Into his composition, Reich wove a "speech melody" of voices – a mix of emergency messages recorded on 11 September 2001 and interviews he conducted in 2010.

Before playing the 15-and-a-half-minute recording in full, Reich explained how he came to write WTC 9/11. He said: “In 2009, David Harrington, the lead violinist of the Kronos quartet, asked me to write a piece using pre-recorded voices.

“But I had no idea what the voices would be. No subject matter.

“Suddenly, a lightbulb went off in my head and I thought “Wait a minute!” 9/11 did mean something to me; it did have an impact on me as it was in my back yard.”

He talked about how, in places, the music mimics the speech inflections and melodic qualities of the voices in the piece. He said: “I wanted to surround them with a musical context that would intensify what they were saying.”

Dr Nicholas McKay, Head of Music, introduced Reich as one of the 'most influential figures of twentieth-century music' and thanked both Reich and Andrew Burke - CEO of the London Sinfonietta and chair of the talk - for taking time out of their four-leg UK tour to speak at the University.

Reich then answered a number of other questions from the audience about the piece and his wider body of work.

One of the respondents to the talk was Clive Webb, Professor of Modern American History, who carries out research on responses to 9/11. He asked Reich about his approach to tackling historical events, referencing his 1988 piece Different Trains, which takes its source material from interviews given by Holocaust survivors.

A number of questioners wanted to hear Reich speak about his pioneering use of innovative techniques such as tape looping and phasing, whereby two identical lines of music begin by playing synchronously but slowly become out of phase with one another when one of them slightly speeds up.

He also spoke about how his Jewish heritage has influenced his choice of subject matter; his use of computers in his later work; his aversion to improvisation; and how the process of recording a piece prepares musicians for performing it live.

Such was the interest in Reich’s talk - the eighth annual Tony Dummett Memorial Lecture – it attracted a near-capacity audience in the largest venue on campus, the 500-seat lecture theatre in the new Jubilee building.

Among those in the audience were students from a number of local sixth-form colleges, who were keen to make the most of this rare opportunity to hear from a composer whose work they study as part of the A level Music syllabus. While they were on campus, the students also enjoyed a tour of the Music department and a talk from faculty about studying music at Sussex.

Reich’s lecture was organised by the Music department and sponsored by the School of Media, Film and Music, the School of History, Arts History and Philosophy and the School of Engineering and Informatics.

Other sponsors of the event were the Research Themes on Security and Social Justice and Digital and Social Media, the Centre for Research in Opera & Music Theatre and the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts.

The composer later performed at the Brighton Dome in a concert featuring his new work Radio Rewrite (inspired by the songs of English rock band Radiohead), before joining representatives from the University of Sussex and musicians from the London Sinfonietta at a drinks reception.

Both the lecture and the concert were held in association with the London Sinfonietta.