To be proudly gay as a composer in the 1970s was brave enough to be Black and gay in that world, even more so. In a combustible career, the late composer swerved from critical acclaim to gate-crashing controversy, and from success to homelessness.
Guardian music September 14, ahem /6LESY5nm6V There have been many misfits in classical music, but Julius Eastman stands tall among them. Julius Eastman: the groundbreaking composer America almost forgot Julius Eastman’s Femenine is named Best New Music.
The Minimalist composer Julius Eastman died in 1990, but a new recording gives him his due. Untitled (Julius Eastman), c.1980.ĬD SOLD OUT AT SOURCE. Recorded live on Wednesday, Novemat Composers Forum in Albany, The Arts Center on the Campus of the Academy of the Holy Names, Albany, New York.Ĭover: Andrew Roth. At the point of his untimely death in 1990, he left almost no tangible legacy at all. Composer-performer JULIUS EASTMAN was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay. should we say euphoria?’” –Mary Jane Leach The legacy of Julius Eastman to the wider world is as yet untold. The performance is the collaborative duos fourth performance around Julius Eastmans 1979 composition, Evil Nigger. “ Eastman’s stated aim with Femenine was to please listeners, saying of the piece that ‘the end sounds like the angels opening up heaven. Recorded by Steve Cellum – co-producer of Arthur Russell’s World of Echo – and mastered by Denis Blackham. Mary Jane Leach also prepared an annotated version of the list for the book, Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and his Music. It contains a list of known compositions as well as background information about Eastman. Illuminating sleeve notes are provided by composer and author Mary Jane Leach, who is co-editor of Gay Guerrilla, the recently released collection of essays on Eastman’s life and music. Mary Jane Leach has maintained a site dedicated to Julius Eastman and his works. Joyous, insistent, and immersive, Femenine bathes the listener in surges of tonal colour from intertwining winds, piano, violin, pitched percussion, synthesizer and – uniquely – the composer’s own invention of mechanised sleigh bells, which provide the 72-minute piece with its characteristic pulse. Known best in the past for his work with figures like Peter Maxwell Davies, Arthur Russell and Meredith Monk, today his own formidable compositions draw increasing admiration. It would be hard to find an artist who personifies so. The music of Julius Eastman (1940-90) is enjoying an on-going period of rediscovery. The growing Julius Eastman revival throughout the new music community in the past few years seems, particularly from hindsight, inevitable. Ensemble (with the composer on piano) which has lain unheard for decades. It is also the work’s only known recording, documenting a 1974 performance by the S.E.M. His music was among the first to combine minimalist. These episodes are examples of Eastman's persistence in pushing the limits of the acceptable in the highly charged arenas of sexual and civil rights.For more information on Julius Eastman, read Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music, available on Amazon.This is the première release of Julius Eastman’s Femenine, for chamber ensemble. Julius Eastman (October 27, 1940-May 28, 1990) was a African-American composer of minimalist tendencies. Eastman tested limits with his political aggressiveness, as recounted in legendary scandals he unleashed, for example, his June 1975 performance of John Cage's Song Books, which featured homoerotic interjections, and the uproar over his titles at Northwestern University. The music of Julius Eastman (1940-90) is enjoying an on-going period of rediscovery.
Eastman's provocative titles, including Gay Guerrilla, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and others assault us with his obsessions. This is the première release of Julius Eastman’s Femenine, for chamber ensemble. Composer-performer JULIUS EASTMAN was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay, straight, classical music, disco, academia, and downtown New York.His music, insistent and straightforward, resists labels and seethes with a tension that resonates with musicians, scholars, and audiences today. Julius Eastman’s meditative, sprawling Femenine is being explored around the world, 31 years after his death.
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