It was thirty-five years ago today that Kronos Quartet gave the world premiere performance of Steve Reich’s Different Trains at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. To mark the occasion, Reich’s publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, has published a new video, in which he discusses the process behind composing this piece for string quartet and tape. Reich used carefully chosen speech recordings to shape the musical material for the score, evoking his American childhood during World War II while also addressing the Holocaust. The 1989 first recording of Different Trains, performed by Kronos, won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition.

Composer Steve Reich talks about creating his iconic 1965 tape piece It's Gonna Rain in a new video from his publisher Boosey & Hawkes. That year, Reich recorded Pentecostal preacher Brother Walter preaching on Noah and the Flood in San Francisco, then aligned two Wollensak tape recorders that gradually fell out of sync, eventually creating contrapuntal lines from the recording. Reich's first major phasing work, it would become a landmark piece.