‘Steve Reich at 90’ honors a minimalist master who still brings ‘continuous joy’

Never let it be said that the power of minimalist music cannot change lives. Follow the esoteric trail of those chiming, ever-revolving, ever-evolving singular notes and you might just face your own Damascus moment—or at least a ringing epiphany. In the case of renowned conductor Brad Lubman, in fact, minimalism created an entirely new life, which has placed him in the top tier of interpreters of one of the genre s giants. On Sat/24, Lubman will conduct mini-festival Steve Reich at 90: A Birthday Celebration for Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall, paying tribute to the pioneering composer, who is still pumping out fascinating work that transmutes the deceptively simple into soul-affirming works of great and hypnotic beauty. (A new piece, In All Your Ways, inspired by a passage in the Book of Proverbs, will have its West Coast debut at the performance.) But Lubner s musical path to Reich and minimalism was anything but conventional. I started out in music as a young k