Julius Eastman facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Julius Eastman
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Undated portrait of Eastman
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| Born | October 27, 1940 |
| Died | May 28, 1990 (aged 49) |
| Alma mater | Ithaca College (1959-60) Curtis Institute of Music (1960-63) |
| Occupation | |
Julius Eastman (October 27, 1940 – May 28, 1990) was an American composer, pianist, vocalist, and performance artist whose work is associated with musical minimalism. He was among the first composers to combine minimalist processes with elements of pop music, and involve experimental methods of extending and modifying music in creating what he called "organic music".
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Biography
Julius Eastman grew up in Ithaca, New York, with his mother, Frances Eastman, and younger brother, Gerry. He began studying piano at age 14 and made rapid progress. He studied at Ithaca College before transferring to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. There he studied piano with Mieczysław Horszowski and composition with Constant Vauclain, and switched majors from piano to composition, graduating in 1963. He made his debut as a pianist in 1966 at The Town Hall in New York City. Eastman had a rich, deep, and extremely flexible singing voice, for which he became noted for his 1973 Nonesuch recording of Eight Songs for a Mad King by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Eastman's talents gained the attention of composer-conductor Lukas Foss, who conducted Davies' music in performance at the Brooklyn Philharmonic.
At the behest of Foss, Eastman joined the Creative Associates — a "prestigious program in avant-garde classical music" that "carried a stipend but no teaching obligations"—at SUNY Buffalo's Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. During this period, he met Petr Kotik, a Czech-born composer, conductor, and flutist. Eastman and Kotik performed together extensively in the early to mid-1970s. Along with Kotik, Eastman was a founding member of the S.E.M. Ensemble.
From 1971 he performed and toured with the group, and composed numerous works for it. During this period, fifteen of Eastman's earliest works were performed by the Creative Associates, including Stay On It (1973), an early augury of postminimalism and one of the first art music compositions inspired by progressions from popular music, presaging the later innovations of Arthur Russell and Rhys Chatham. Although Eastman began to teach theory and composition courses over the course of his tenure, he left Buffalo in 1975.
Shortly thereafter, Eastman settled in New York City. Eastman often wrote his music following what he called an "organic" principle. Each new section of a work contained all the information from previous sections, though sometimes "the information is taken out at a gradual and logical rate."
In 1976, Eastman participated in a performance of Eight Songs for a Mad King conducted by Pierre Boulez at Lincoln Center. He served as the first male vocalist in Meredith Monk's ensemble, as documented on her influential album Dolmen Music (1981). He fostered a strong kinship and collaboration with Arthur Russell, conducting nearly all of his orchestral recordings (compiled as First Thought Best Thought [Audika Records, 2006]) and participating (as organist and vocalist) in the recording of 24-24 Music (1982; released under the imprimatur of Dinosaur L), a controversial disco-influenced composition that included the underground dance hits "Go Bang!" and "In the Cornbelt"; both featured Eastman's trademark bravado.
During this period, he also played in a jazz ensemble with his brother Gerry, who previously played guitar in the Count Basie Orchestra. He played in and conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonia's CETA Orchestra (funded by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act under the administration of the Cultural Council Foundation). He also coordinated the Philharmonia's Community Concert Series in conjunction with Foss and other composers of color. By 1980, he was regularly touring across the United States and internationally; a recording of a performance from that year at Northwestern University was released on the posthumous compilation Unjust Malaise (2005).
A 1981 piece for Eastman's cello ensemble, The Holy Presence of Joan d'Arc, was performed at The Kitchen in New York City. In 1986, the choreographer Molissa Fenley set her dance, Geologic Moments, to music of Philip Glass and two works by Eastman (an unknown work for two pianos and "One God" in which Eastman sang and played piano), which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Death
Eastman died alone at the age of 49 in Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo, New York of cardiac arrest. No public notice was given to his death until an obituary by Kyle Gann appeared in the Village Voice; it was dated January 22, 1991, eight months after Eastman died. As Eastman's notational methods were loose and open to interpretation, revival of his music has been a difficult task, dependent on people who worked with him.
Style
Eastman's works often involve repeating, slowly evolving and discordant aleatoric sections, and pop structures (particularly in Stay on It (1973) or The Holy Presence of Joan D'Arc (1981), which repeat but dramatically evolve catchy riffs). As well as this, his long-form piano pieces like Gay Guerrilla (c. 1980) show his intent to dramatically explore his Black and gay identity through motifs that, in tone and repetition, represent heightening conflict, particularly strong in emotion for minimalism. Eastman described his works as "organic music" involving "gradual accrual and accumulation, often followed by gradual disintegration", where he would gradually and sometimes abruptly alter repeated refrains and phrases to create the basis for sheet music and its performance.
Known works
- Piano Pieces I - IV (1968) for solo piano
- Thruway (1970) for flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, cello, soprano solo, off stage jazz trio, SATB choir, electronics
- The Moon's Silent Modulation (1970) for dancers, vocalists and chamber ensemble
- Touch Him When (1970) for piano 4 hands
- Trumpet (1970) for 7 trumpets
- Macle (1971) for voices and electronics
- Comp 1 (1971) for solo flute
- Mumbaphilia (1972) for solo performer and dancers
- Wood in Time (1972) for 8 metronomes
- Tripod (1972) instrumentation unknown, score fragment for one treble voice and one tape part exists
- Colors (1973) for 14 women's voices and tape
- Stay on It (1973) for no fixed instrumentation, although piano, percussion, and voice were always included
- 440 (1973) for voice, violin, viola and double bass
- That Boy (1974) for small instrumental ensemble
- Joy Boy (1974) for 4 treble instruments
- Femenine (1974) for chamber ensemble
- Masculine (1974) for small instrumental ensemble
- If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich? (1977) for violin, 2 French horns, 4 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, piano, 2 chimes and 2 basses
- The Holy Presence of Joan d'Arc (1981) for ten cellos
- Untitled [Prelude to The Holy Presence of Joan d'Arc] (1981) for solo voice
- Symphony No. II - The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend's Love for the Beloved (1983) for orchestra
- His Most Qualityless Majesty (1983) for piano and voice
- Hail Mary (1984) for voice and piano
- Buddha (1983) for unspecified instrumentation
- Piano 2 (1986) for solo piano
- Our Father (1989) for 2 male voices
See also
In Spanish: Julius Eastman para niños
