A style of music that originated in the USA in the 1960s and was pioneered by LaMonte Young and Terry Riley, but which achieved its greatest refinement in the works of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Minimalism relies upon the repetition of usually simple, rhythmically stable musical figures and static harmony to achieve its effect. Though the era of pure minimalism was relatively short, its influence on both sides of the Atlantic was far-reaching, for it offered composers an alternative to the complex methods of organization that had been dominant since the end of World War II — Andrew Clements