Flotation Device celebrates The John Coltrane Centenary with an all-vinyl show hosted by John Seman, touching on 1965–67, including Coltrane’s final studio dates in Spring 1967 featuring Alice Coltran...

This week we explore somber works inspired by Beckett and Dürer, contrasting Charles Dodge’s speech-synthesized realization of Beckett’s play Cascando with Trevor Bača's new rendition of Stirrings Sti...

Flotation Device celebrates saxophonist Dave Liebman’s 80th birthday with a look at his career that spans Miles Davis and Tyshawn Sorey. We’ll remain with Sorey as he reflects on Morton Feldman’s mast...

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Flotation Device salutes the uncommon Americanism of Mel Powell, a student of both Willie “The Lion” Smith and Paul Hindemith who recorded his neoclassical compositions for the Vanguard jazz label bef...

Progressive Proclamations, Free Jazz Gestures, Intentions, and more Blood with your host John Seman.

Flotation Device celebrates the 100th birthday of the indefatigable Franco-American composer Betsy Jolas, and the 50th anniversaries of Anthony Braxton’s Duets 1976, Wadada Leo Smith’s Song of Humanit...

Flotation Device celebrates the 65th birthday of the most important living Korean composer, Unsuk Chin, with a sampling of her complex, colorful music conveyed in new recordings by Ensemble interconte...

Flotation Device celebrates Stuart Dempster for his 90th birthday with a look at his career highlights as a trombonist, composer and didgeridoo player credited with co-founding Deep Listening Band, pl...

Flotation Device salutes Miles Davis for his 100th birthday with several of his most unusual and forward-looking (but not always most popular) recordings. We marvel at the range of his half-century ca...

Flotation Device pays homage to Michael Tilson Thomas as a pianist, composer and—above all else—a conductorial advocate for new music, as exemplified in two of our favorite recordings of his that show...

Flotation Device celebrates Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians on its 50th anniversary with a medley of seven different recordings of minimalism's first big crossover hit, which represented both the...

Flotation Device welcomes Ludovic Morlot back to the show to talk about conducting his first fully-staged production of Carmen at Seattle Opera, and to discuss his new recording of orchestral works by Betsy Jolas just released by the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra. We also chat about recovering from the loss of his home in the Palisades fire, and preview his October 2026 concerts with Seattle Symphony that will mark his first engagement at Benaroya Hall since Xian Zhang assumed his former there as Music Director in a program that will include Schumann, Bridge and Samuel Adams. Originally broadcast April 26, 2026 on Flotation Device, 91.3 KBCS-FM Bellevue/Seattle/Tacoma. Flotation Device showcases creative and improvised music from the Northwest and around the world, live Sunday nights, 10pm to Midnight Pacific Time on 91.3 KBCS HD1, and then in podcast format at https://www.mixcloud.com/FlotationDevice. Find us on the Web by Googling "Flotation Device KBCS". 00:00 Introduction, Carmen at Seattle Opera 08:00 Betsy Jolas 10:11 Palisades Fire and music in Los Angeles 12:33 The Sounds of Spring: Adams, Schumann, Bridge 15:11 Jolas: B-Day for Symphony Orchestra Interview © 2026 Michael Schell

This episode features the premiere recording of a Tristan Murail composition that contemplates Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead in a way that’s just as sensuous but less literal than Rachmaninoff’s famous d...

Flotation Device previews several enticing Northwest new music events, with Seattle Symphony premiering works by Joan Tower and Christopher Theofanidis, Seattle Modern Music tackling Ligeti’s Piano Co...

Flotation Device checks in with one of the OGs of creative music, Roscoe Mitchell, and his new album of duets with drummer Michele Rabbia. His legacy touches multiple generations, as can be deduced by...

Flotation Device celebrates the 100th birthdays of microtonal pioneer Ben Johnston and electronic music pioneer İlhan Mimaroğlu, plus the 80th birthday of Michael Finnissy, whose prodigious output we ...

​Flotation Device bids farewell to Éliane Radigue with a look at her audacious and beautiful music built from complex, slowly-transforming drones. Our survey of her electronic landmarks of the 20th ce...

New music for violin and percussion comes to the Northwest as we preview Emerald City Music’s premiere of works by Vivian Fung, Gabriella Smith and Joan Tower, with a Lou Harrison cameo illustrating t...

Flotation Device celebrates the great Hungarian composer György Kurtág for his 100th birthday with a retrospective of his sparse, gripping and epigrammatic chamber and vocal pieces, plus a sampling of...

Our 50th anniversary exploration of Creative Orchestra Music 1976 brings us to the intersection of Stockhausen and the AACM as we revisit Anthony Braxton’s Composition No. 59 in both its original stud...

Michael Schell reviews Mason Bates' new opera, and explains why it works better in movie theaters than at the opera house.