Steve Reich's latest album, WTC 9/11, which was released last month on Nonesuch Records, features the title piece, Reich's reflection on the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, which is scored for three string quartets, performed by Kronos Quartet, and pre-recorded voices, including NORAD air traffic controllers, first responders, and women who kept vigil over the dead. Now, as the composer marks his 75th birthday this month, Clash magazine talks to Reich and takes an in-depth look at the piece, its conception, and the very personal story behind it.

"Steve Reich has composed one of his greatest works to date," writes Clash's Samuel Breen. "It is a tale of protest, frustration and artistic mastery."

Breen goes on to describe WTC 9/11 as "a staggering work for many reasons" and offers a larger context in which to place it among Reich's works. "Following on from the masterly practices he has spent fifty years exploring, Reich has taken on an aposite challenge. He has adopted everything he learnt from Different Trains, Come Out, and It’s Gonna Rain to the more detailed City Life, Three Tales and The Cave. From investing so much practice into the handling of issue at the centre of society, Reich is an authority at communicating himself and the ideas of others. But despite this sagely position, Reich does not see his art as social commentary."

Rather, Reich explains: “I choose events that mean something to me, otherwise how’s it going to mean anything to you? Then I find people who are emotionally charged because of what happened to them. I think the reaction to WTC 9/11 is that it’s one of the most emotional pieces of mine that people have heard and I think that’s pretty accurate. It’s not an intellectual exercise.”

"In WTC 9/11," Breen confirms, "we see this humanitarian approach from the first to the last note."

Read the extensive article and interview with Steve Reich at clashmusic.com and in the October issue of Clash magazine.

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Kronos Quartet recently marked Steve Reich's 75th birthday with an all-Reich program at Hertz Hall at the University of California, Berkeley, featuring the Bay Area premiere of WTC 9/11, which the San Jose Mercury News found to be both "immersive and moving." Kronos will give the piece its French premiere at Cité de la musique in Paris in January and will perform it at Kaul Auditorium at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, in March. For more information, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.

Next Monday at Reed's Kaul Auditorium, Sō Percussion performs Mallet Quartet. The group performs the piece on Reich's new WTC 9/11 album, which also includes a DVD with a live performance of Mallet Quartet.

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To pick up a copy of WTC 9/11, head to the Nonesuch Store, where CD orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the album at checkout. MP3s and FLAC lossless files of the album are also available to purchase.