Julius Eastman

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Julius Eastman (born August 27, 1940 in Ithaca , New York ; died May 28, 1990 in Buffalo , New York ) was an American composer of minimal music .

Life

Julius Eastman grew up with his mother , who later played guitar with the Count Basie Orchestra , among others , and showed a musical talent at an early age. He attended Ithaca College and then went to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia . There he studied piano with Mieczysław Horszowski and composition with Constant Vauclain. He made his concert debut in 1966 at the Town Hall in New York City. Eastman also had a good voice and he recorded Eight Songs for a Mad King by Peter Maxwell Davies on record in 1973 . The conductor Lukas Foss got him a scholarship to Buffalo's Center for the Creative and Performing Arts , where he taught music theory and met Petr Kotík . Eastman and Kotík worked together in the 1970s in the SEM Ensemble they founded , which performed works by John Cage and Morton Feldman . In 1975 he fell out with Cage, who accused him of a narrow-minded artistic attitude centered exclusively on his own homosexuality , and he left Buffalo. Another reason for his departure, according to Kyle Gann , was that Eastman was neglecting the bureaucratic requirements of university operations.

He lived in New York as a freelance artist. In 1979 he wrote his pieces Evil Nigger , Gay Guerrilla and Crazy Nigger for piano quartet. He was featured in Meredith Monk's record Dolmen Music in 1981 and in Monk's Turtle Dreams in 1983 . He conducted his compositions for his friend Arthur Russell .

In the 1980s, Eastman became increasingly addicted to alcohol and hard drugs. He moved to the homeless camp in Tompkins Square Park . He died of cardiac arrest in a hospital, unnoticed by the musical public . An obituary by Kyle Gann did not appear on the Village Voice until nine months after his death .

Since 2006, pieces by Eastman have occasionally been reconstructed and performed. In 2017 there was a concert as part of the MaerzMusik Festival in Berlin and as part of an interdisciplinary project at SAVVY Contemporary 2017-2018. In 2017, three concerts at St. Peter's Art Station in Cologne included Macle and Colors , a composition for 16 solo female voices.

Recordings (selection)

  • Femenine . SEM Ensemble (Frozen Reeds). 2016 (1974)
  • Gay guerrilla. Julius Eastman and His Music . Rochester, NY; Woodbridge, Suffolk Boydell & Brewer 2015
  • Piano interpretations. Kukuruz Quartet (Intakt Records). 2018

literature

  • Renée Levine Packer; Mary Jane Leach (Ed.): Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music . Essays and Biography. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2015
  • Wolfgang Schreiber : Black and gay and evil. America's forgotten minimalist . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 20, 2017, p. 10

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Eastman, Julius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American composer of minimal music
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Ithaca , New York
DATE OF DEATH May 28, 1990
Place of death Buffalo , New York