In praise of … Steve Reich

"If you are going to write repetitive music it had better not be 'oom pa pa oom pa pa' for half an hour otherwise people are going to get out of there in a hurry," the American composer Steve Reich told the Guardian this year. As anyone who listens to a broadcast of tomorrow night's late Prom will discover, he is no desiccated minimalist. His work using looped taped voices was not only original (it began in 1965 with It's Gonna Rain, long before sampling became a pop staple) but created stunning, fluid sounds which still impress today. In Different Trains (pairing his boyhood journeys on American Pullman expresses with accounts of trains to concentration camps) he contrasted the shrieking whistles of European trains with the long, swooping hoots of "the crack train from New York". Reich cares about creating sonic beauty through harmony and rhythm. Even Clapping Music, the short, staccato piece which will begin tomorrow's concert, should overcome the potential absurdity of prommers in the Albert Hall applauding two people for having clapped on stage in varied but related rhythms. Reich, the Guardian once suggested, is one of the few composers who have "altered the direction of musical history". Along with John Adams, he created a distinctly American form of postwar music, less alien to untrained ears than some of the output of their European contemporaries. In a Proms season that contains many treasures, Reich's performance – and his presence in London – stands out.