Julius Eastman performed at Lincoln Center, sang on underground disco records, and helped reshape classical minimalism, yet he died alone in a Buffalo hospital in 1990 at 49, and eight months passed before an obituary appeared. This episode explores his life: born in New York City in 1940 and raised in Ithaca, he did not start piano until 14, then graduated from the Curtis Institute in 1963 as a composer, made his Town Hall debut in 1966, and developed a baritone voice capable of the most demanding avant-garde techniques, showcased on a 1973 recording of Peter Maxwell Davies.

We follow Eastman into the Creative Associates program at SUNY Buffalo, where he co-founded the SEM Ensemble and wrote Stay On It in 1973, injecting pop grooves into the mathematical world of minimalism. We examine the 1975 John Cage performance that ended in nudity an ...