![]() They will not only celebrate a fractured master but seek to change what Eastman could not, certainly not single-handedly: a largely white male avant-garde that’s learning to make room for other stories, and other visions. He was a Black and gay composer, ignored by the institutions of his day, and died homeless in relative obscurity. ![]() 10, that includes concerts, performances, and an exhibition. As Julius Eastman ’s work from the 1970s and 1980s has been rediscovered in recent years and his place in the canon of minimalist music reappraised, the narrative has focused on his tragedies. Young musicians, queer artists, and others who champion Eastman’s singular vision are gathering at the Kitchen for a tribute, Jan. The 12-minute The Moon’s Silent Modulation, from 1970, is an episodic piece of serialism, featuring brief forays into discordant operatic harmonies, swing-style walking bass, rumbling cellos and. The current Eastman revival has been led by the brilliant composer Mary Jane Leach, who has done much to help reconstruct the music and who, along with the historian Renée Levine Packer, helped put out “Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music,” an essential text about the artist. The love and support that follow him now are very touching. Many of his compositions had been thrown out when he failed to pay the rent for his East Village apartment. He wanted an academic position in order to keep going, but it didn’t come through he didn’t go along to get along, which is part of his genius, and his tragedy. He married political meaning to works for cello and piano which always sounded like the voice-his voice.Įastman, it seems, was a man filled with longing, and with dashed hopes that he helped dash. Julius Eastman’s ‘Femenine’ is performed at Monday Evening Concerts by an ensemble including artistic director Jonathan Hepfer on vibraphone, center, and cellist Seth Parker Woods, to his. His controlled-chance compositions are as bold as his titles, and, as one of the few blacks to gain recognition in the downtown avant-garde music scene (he moved to Manhattan in 1976), Eastman talked about race in his work at a time when many other composers were dealing with pure sound and repetition. He and his younger brother Gerry were raised by their mother. 16, 2018 Concerts and recordings of the works of Julius Eastman a vibrant composer-performer who was all but lost to history after his death in 1990 have become reliably important events. He grew up in the university town of Ithaca, in upstate New York. Issued in a limited edition of 500 copies, it’s a much-needed entry in the Eastman’s catalog, helping to upend long-standing perceptions of post-minimal music, as well as the activities of the '70s and '80s New York avant-garde.Eastman composed what he called “organic music”: each phrase of a piece contained a bit from the previous phrase-but then he might erase some phrases. Julius Dunbar Eastman Jr was born in October 1940. 47. ![]() Both recorded by the composer with all-star ensembles, together they bookend Eastman’s short career, illuminating where he came from, where he had been, and were his work came to an end. Thankfully, Week-End Records is pushing against the tide with “ Stay on It”, comprising two of the composer’s most important works - 1973’s “ Stay on It” and 1981’s “ The Holy Presence of Joan D‘Arc”. August 4, 20227:12 AM ET By Harmony Holiday Enlarge this image What Wild Up unearths on Julius Eastman, Vol. Surprisingly, with the exception of Blume Editions’ 2018 pressing of the “ N**ger Series”, his efforts remain sinfully unavailable on vinyl. Since the issue of “ Unjust Malaise” by New World Records in 2005 - the first release dedicated to his work - roughly a dozen album’s featuring Eastman’s compositions have appeared. Retrospectively, he has become regarded as one of most important voices of his generation. His obituary did not appear in The Village Voice until nine months after his death. Thanks to the efforts of a small number of friends and devoted believers and a slow trickle of archival releases, it’s been incredible to witness his ascending star over the last decade and half. Homeless and residing in Tompkins Square Park, Eastman died of a cardiac arrest age 49. A celebrated figure within the New York experimental music scene during the 1970s and '80s, over the years following his untimely death in 1990 he and his work were lost from the collective consciousness. The 92nd Street Y, New York and Wild Up presented a three-concert festival of works by this pioneering Black queer composer. Julius Eastman’s music seethes and soothes it caresses, charges and challenges. Time and circumstance weren’t always kind to Julius Eastman. Now Celebrated, Julius Eastman’s Music Points to a New Canon.
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