Steve Reich’s string quartet WTC 9/11 affects you in a strange way. A blend of contemporary voices with two prerecorded string quartets and one live quartet, it’s modern music at its strongest. In fact all three string quartets on this album by Reich were written for live musicians with supporting tapes. Two works interweave speech into the music and it’s this blend of acoustic elements that challenges the ear and mind in ways other music does not. All originally written for the world-renowned Kronos Quartet, they have never been available on a single album until now. Formed in 2008, Mivos Quartet is devoted to performing works of contemporary composers and presenting diverse new music to international audiences. And on a residency at the Curtis R Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York they recorded all three of Steve Reich’s epic String Quartets for release on Deutsche Grammophon. Working closely with the composer these are now considered the definitive recordings of these works, sometimes described as some of the greatest art music of the 21st century.