City Life (music)

The piece is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 vibraphones, unpitched percussion, 2 samplers, 2 pianos, string quartet, and double bass.

The use of the samplers extends the idea of using everyday sounds in music, indebted to the taxi horn in Gershwin's An American in Paris, the sirens used by Varèse, and Antheil's airplane propeller within the classical tradition as well as to rock and roll and rap.

The last movement uses bits of field communications from the New York Fire Department during the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

The Bluecoats Drum and Bugle Corps featured a section of movement one, "Check it out" in their 2013 production "...To Look for America.

"[citation needed] The work is divided into five movements, and like many other Reich compositions they follow an arch-like form of A-B-C-B-A.