"When you've had a six decade long career at the forefront of contemporary music, and your record label issues a 27-disc box set called Collected Works, you tend to want to look back a bit," says New Sounds host John Schaefer. "Steve Reich is the subject of such a box set." Reich is also Schaefer's guest for the full hour of the show's latest episode, in which they do look back to hear and discuss some of the seminal earlier works in Collected Works, like Drumming (1970–71) and Music for 18 Musicians (1974–76), as well as two new works in the set, Jacob’s Ladder (2023) and Traveler’s Prayer (2020). You can hear their conversation and the music in the episode via WNYC here:

Steve Reich Collected Works features music recorded during the composer's forty years on the label—six decades of his compositions—plus two extensive booklets with new essays by Robert Hurwitz, Michael Tilson Thomas, Russell Hartenberger, Judith Sherman, and Nico Muhly, and a comprehensive listener’s guide by Timo Andres. Nonesuch made its first record with Steve Reich in 1985; he was signed exclusively to the label that year. Collected Works includes twenty-four discs of Nonesuch recordings and three from other labels. You can get it here.