Flotation Device celebrates Steve Reich for his 90th birthday with a look at one of his minimalist classics plus a lesser-known later work that showcases his interest in speech melody. We're helped by Ensemble Modern, the Mivos Quartet, DJ Spooky and the late Michael Tilson Thomas. And we assess Reich's towering status among American composers (including the other great minimalists) while contrasting his beat-driven music to the sparse pseudo-repetitions of Morton Feldman's Palais de Mari. We also launch our coverage of the 2026 Earshot Jazz Festival with a preview of Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri’s Transylvanian Dance, which takes Bartók’s famous field recordings of Eastern European folk music as its improvisational starting point. Lucian joins us for an exclusive interview detailing his unusual career path from Cluj, Romania to the Downtown New York jazz scene. Creative and improvised music from the Northwest and around the world with host Michael Schell.
