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. With a nod to L.A.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. Los Angeles Opera announces 2017-18 season The coming to terms with Julius Eastman has just gamble pays off: Long Beach Opera transports 1692 ‘Fairy Queen’ to modern-day Vegas Imagine, if you will, spending an hour in an MRI machine designed by an advanced civilization not only examining your brain but also massaging it into a contrivance for higher thought. Near the end, eight young pianists leaped onto the stage from the audience and joined in for a climax of complexity. There are points of such explosive density that restarts are necessary, but each time that means only something more so is on the way. The pounding is stupendous.Ĭhanges happen within these humongous clouds of sounds with 90-second frequency, but they are subtle, under the overwhelming sonic surface. The four-piano finale - offered by Eastman’s friend and noted new music specialist Joseph Kubera, along with younger local colleagues Richard Valitutto, Brendan Nguyen and Todd Moellenberg - was more extreme. A phrase from Patti Smith’s “Rock ’n’ Roll … ” (the title also ending in the epithet Eastman used) becomes processed through repetitions, metrical and harmonic additions, into a mass of low string sounds that effuse the atmosphere for 20 minutes. This is an immersion into the essence of cello. The stage then brightened for “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc” for 10 cellos, which were conducted by Monday Evening Concerts artistic director Jonathan Hepfer. A short text exhorts Joan to speak boldly with phrases that repeat, growing in intensity. Lighted with a halo, Tines sang Eastman’s solo “Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc” with what may be even more otherworldliness and mesmerizing sanctity than the composer himself brought to his performances. The Zipper program began with a darkened hall and the young bass-baritone Davóne Tines placed high above the stage. He may have felt he was still a voice in a white wilderness, but he would, nonetheless, have been thrilled by what he heard. But from what I remember of Eastman, I doubt that he would have been happy. If the gripping performances, and the gripped crowd, on Monday are any indication, we will be hearing much more Eastman. (The newest, the hourlong “Femenine,” is compulsively listenable.) An important study, “Gay Guerrilla,” titled after one of Eastman’s pieces, has recently been published. Historical recordings have been released. Phil included Eastman on its 2014 Minimalist Jukebox festival. The piece performed Tuesday had its West Coast premiere 10 years ago at REDCAT, and the L.A. But the new music scene was simply, and in Eastman’s case tragically, not ready for identity politics.Īll of that, of course, makes Eastman speak with tremendous immediacy to our own time, and a revival of Eastman has been brewing for a while.
#Julius eastman series
Many had proud, angry titles, such as his N-word series of scores for multiple pianos. His pieces had power and compositional integrity, and they sounded like no one else’s. Composers practiced ego removal in an effort to liberate music, in belief that whatever thoughts and feelings the music engendered must be allowed to belong to the listener.Įastman’s contribution was to expand hardcore process-oriented Minimalism, finding ways to fit in expressive dissonances, improvisation and elements of African American music, including its spirituality. The musical avant-garde, be they European radicals, the experimental New York School around John Cage or the Minimalists, espoused an abstract art form meant to open ears to new ways of hearing. Eastman, who was recognized from the start as a major talent, was immediately welcomed.īut he and the community nevertheless turned out to be a troubling fit. And if all but a very few were white, that was widely thought regrettable. It was a community that many thought was basically without prejudice, sexually or racially.
The purposely provocative title, “Crazy ,” tells you something, but far from everything, about Eastman, who was African American, gay and out-of-step with the new-music community in which he was a rising star.
In the final piece on Monday’s program, four pianos thundered for 55 minutes unlike four pianos had ever been asked to thunder before the music was written in 1979.
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