Steve Reich celebrates his 75th birthday with one of his most impressive and emotionally affecting compositions. ‘WTC 9/11’ reflects upon the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the nearly 3000 deaths that resulted. Like Different Trains (1988), it fuses music and spoken voice. The issues are both textural and textual. ‘WTC 9/11’ has some of the darkest colours of anything Reich has written but by including human voices speaking from experience the genuine pathos of the event and its aftermath is revealed with an authority that cannot be ignored. The two compositions – ‘Mallet Quartet’ and ‘Dance Patterns’ – that follow are less weighty but beautiful nonetheless, a reminder perhaps that life continues beyond tragedy or the tragic. Reich’s music may seem harmonically simplistic compared to the sophistication of much Western music. Yet his ability to explore colour, texture and timbre in his art often carries intimations of the profound. These three compositions have that in common, share that same sense of celebration and sadness and are rich in their sense of place and time and of the universality of positive human values.