Instead, though, he breaks down your defenses with glorious effusions of new material, opening you up to what becomes a new kind of musical spirituality.Įntertainment & Arts Indispensable classical music for newbies and aficionados alikeĬoronavirus may have silenced our symphony halls, taking away the essential communal experience of the concert as we know it, but The Times invites you to join us on a different kind of shared journey: a new series on listening. He aggressively pummels a melodic figure with a ferocity that intimates a session of unbearable irritation. institution, Jacaranda, had been Eastman’s breakthrough. “Stay on It,” which also has a gripping recent recording from another L.A. He was nominated for a Grammy for his compelling performance of Peter Maxwell Davies’ “Eight Songs for a Mad King.” He toured Europe to stamping, cheering crowds with a work, “Stay on It,” that gave the formalist minimalism of the moment an irreverent jazz-pop-improvisation kick in the behind. He appeared with Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic. He was an extraordinary vocalist who sang in the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s new music series under Zubin Mehta. Eastman - who grew up in Ithaca, N.Y., and attended the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia - was turning heads wherever he went and whatever he was doing. It was written during Eastman’s most promising years, when he was a member of a flourishing new music scene at State University of New York’s Buffalo campus. The symphony will be part of a regular subscription concert series in February that will be conducted by the orchestra’s music director, Jaap van Zweden, and that opens with Beethoven and Berlioz.īut back to “Femenine,” which some members of Wild Up performed three years ago as part of a Monday Evening Concerts ensemble and which Wild Up presented Thursday night outdoors at Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa to promote the new release. II - “The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved” - found in a drawer and reconstructed.
JULIUS EASTMAN PROFESSIONAL
Most unexpected of all has been the news that the New York Philharmonic will give the first professional performance of Eastman’s disquieting Symphony No. Two weeks later, Eastman will be paired on a program with another Eastern European mystic minimalist, Henryk Górecki, at another festival, the Proms in London.
JULIUS EASTMAN FREE
This comes on the heels of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s announcement of a free chamber music program combining Eastman with the popular Estonian spiritual minimalist Arvo Pärt at the Ford on Aug. The Los Angeles new music collective Wild Up released a sensational recording Friday on the New Amsterdam label of Eastman’s seriously challenging, incessantly repetitious 1974 “Femenine.” The majestic effusiveness of this performance is such that it instantly changes the landscape, revealing new possibilities for a far and wide acceptance of Eastman’s music. Or do they? In a remarkable series of events, the Eastman revival has taken a surprisingly trendy turn. He is simply too difficult and disturbing. His life is a documentary or biopic waiting to happen.Įver alien and alienating, the inscrutable Eastman has seemed destined to remain a new music outsider. His music - what is left of it (much is lost, all of it a mess) - requires Herculean reconstruction efforts. Whether through the shocking titles for many of his pieces or his relationships with lovers and cherished colleagues, he challenged so many forms of prejudice.Įastman, who was born in 1940, rose like a comet with spectacular flair and flamed out just as stunningly, dying at 50 in obscurity - homeless and alone. It didn’t matter whether you were white or Black, straight or gay: He had something up his sleeve for any of us. He could be - personally and in his art - lovable and discomfiting. He was proudly and provocatively Black and gay. It would be hard to find an artist who personifies so many issues of our day - Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, homelessness, income inequality, mental health, addiction, you name it.Īn extraordinarily gifted composer, vocalist, pianist, dancer and choreographer, Eastman had a magnetic presence and gripping sense of theater.
The growing Julius Eastman revival throughout the new music community in the past few years seems, particularly from hindsight, inevitable.
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