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Eastman scholarship. Recent events devoted to Eastman’s music and life include a December 2016 series by the London Contemporary Music Festival, a January 2017 The world catches up to program by Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles, and iconoclastic Julius two iterations of a festival called Julius Eastman: That Eastman Which Is Fundamental, one last spring in and the other this year in He died homeless almost three decades ago, and his work . It’s all part of was nearly lost. But classical music finally has room for a an upwelling of interest in queer black voice in the minimalist pantheon. the composer that surpasses anything he enjoyed when he was alive. hen minimalist composer Julius Eastman died of cardiac arrest in Eastmania, as this phenomenon is sometimes known, arrives in a Buffalo hospital in 1990, the 49-year-old had been homeless for Chicago in force this week. On the afternoon of Sunday, February 25, mostW of a decade. His obituary in the Village Voice wouldn’t appear till the Frequency Festival (programmed by Reader critic Peter Margasak) eight months later. He’d lost most of his possessions (probably including hosts the city’s first Julius Eastman portrait concert, curated by Chicago his scores) when he lost his apartment, and no commercial recordings cellist Seth Parker Woods and held at the Cultural Center’s Preston of his pieces existed. It became nearly impossible for musicians to Bradley Hall. play his work, or for listeners to hear it. In life, Eastman had been As a composer, Eastman practiced an ecstatic, emphatic, and unforgettable: outspoken, provocative, brilliant, unapologetically queer sometimes militant form of , eventually developing what he and black. But the lonely circumstances of his death threatened to erase called “organic music”—a style of gradual accrual and accumulation, him from memory. often followed by gradual disintegration. He was also a bass singer of Not everyone could forget such a powerful personality, of course, and extraordinary depth and dexterity, and as a performer and improviser years of dogged and loving research—by people who’d known Eastman he traversed a variety of musical communities in New York: not and those who’d only heard the stories—uncovered partial scores, long-­ just minimalism but also free jazz and . Those who remember neglected tapes in university libraries, and other fragments of his output. Eastman attest to the brilliance of his artistry, his inimitable and So far less than half of his catalog has been recovered, but in 2005 the sometimes outrageous personality, and his lifelong preoccupation with first of many commercial releases of Eastman’s music finally appeared: spirituality. He aimed to live an outsize life, and summed up his ideal in a three-CD set of archival material called Unjust Malaise (New World). a 1976 Buffalo News interview: “Black to the fullest, a musician to the In 2015 the University of Rochester Press published a collection of fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”

Eastman’s legacy is still being pieced pursuit has yet to end, and it continues to bear arts space the Kitchen, jazz guitarist Gerry together today. Mary Jane Leach, a fellow fruit: recent Eastman releases include the 1974 Eastman (who controls Julius’s estate) began performer and composer on New York’s recording Femenine (Frozen Reeds, 2016) the evening with a lengthy remembrance of scene in the 80s, has led and a 1980 performance packaged as Julius his younger brother. The event was part of much of the effort to recover his lost music. Eastman: The Zürich Concert (New World, the New York installment of That Which Is She assembled the recordings on Unjust 2017). Fundamental, organized by Tiona Nekkia Malaise by searching libraries at SUNY At a January 27 concert hosted by Manhattan McClodden and Dustin Hurt for Philadelphia Buffalo and as well arts nonprofit Bowerbird. The festival ran as the collections of private individuals. With January 19 through February 10 and included musicologist Renée Levine Packer, she edited not just a concert series (featuring the the 2015 anthology Gay Guerrilla: Julius composer’s work and newly commissioned Eastman and His Music, named after one of the pieces inspired by his life) but also an composer’s best-known works. Eastman exhibit with archived reviews, audio Beginning in the late 90s, Leach and many interviews, and rare photos. others laid the groundwork for the accelerating As Gerry told it, the siblings grew up in Eastman revival: over nearly two decades, Ithaca, New York, where Julius showed interest they played exhausting rounds of phone tag in the family piano at an early age. His mother with potential sources and made countless encouraged him to take lessons, and his teacher inquiries and archive searches, hitting nearly urged him to join an Episcopal choir, where he as many dead ends. Leach might hear that served as pianist and a boy soprano; he also someone had a tape of a long-ago Eastman participated in glee club throughout junior radio broadcast, only to find the cassette box high and high school. Eastman attended Ithaca empty. If she actually located a tape, it might College for a year, then left in September be too degraded to salvage. Composer and 1959 for Philadelphia’s prestigious Curtis producer Chris McIntyre reconstructed the Institute of Music—one of the most selective Eastman piece Trumpet by consulting a blurry conservatories in the world, in part because photo and transcribing a 1971 recording. The its students don’t pay tuition. At the time, the Continued. . .

New World Records https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/julius-eastman-frequency-festival-gay-guerrilla-composer-minimalist/Content?oid=41540539 2/3 New World Records

school housed students with local families then theatrically and erotically undressed word ‘nigger’ is in it. . . . Now the reason that rather than in dorms, but no family would host the man (the woman refused). Cage treated I use that particular word is because for me it Eastman. (It’s worth remembering that the his own homosexuality as a private matter, has . . . what I call a ‘basicness’ about it. . . . Civil Rights Act was still five years away.) He and he was incensed—the Zen saint of the And what I mean by ‘niggers’ is that thing was so hell-bent on getting a musical education avant-­garde, famous for letting sounds be which is fundamental, that person or thing that that until his graduation in May 1963 he lived sounds, apparently had a tougher time letting obtains a basicness, a fundamentalness, and in a claustrophobic room at the local YMCA. people be people. But Eastman saw no eschews that thing which is superficial or, what Eastman moved distinction between can we say, elegant.” in spring 1967 to experimenting in his Music critic and composer (a Buffalo, at the time music and negotiating longtime Reader contributor) attended that a thriving center for his identity. As concert, and recalls Eastman delivering “a contemporary music. Northwestern professor wise, calm speech.” As confrontational as Renée Levine Packer Ryan Dohoney noted the composer’s ideas could be, his bearing was then working in a 2014 academic was serene. “He carried himself calmly, and in SUNY Buffalo’s paper, “Eastman, his deep bass voice gave him a remarkable music department. like numerous gravitas, like an Old Testament prophet,” “Julius Eastman queer musicians Gann says. “His ideas were way out of the appeared in my before him . . . used mainstream and he expressed them fearlessly, office unannounced his compositions, but it was their content that provoked people, one day—a slim, improvisations, and not his manner.” handsome black performances as modes Within just a few years, though, and still in man of medium of creating gay life.” his early 40s, Eastman seemed to sense that height dressed in When Eastman his life was coming to a close. He was evicted a long army-green moved to New from his apartment in late 1981 or early ‘82, trench coat and York City in the at which point most of his belongings were white sneakers, late 1970s, his work confiscated—likely including all the scores he carrying some music began to reflect still had. In a 1984 interview with radio host scores under his this negotiation— David Garland, recorded when he was drifting arm,” she recalls most plainly in the between his mother’s and brother’s homes, in Gay Guerrilla. confrontational titles he he described himself as in his “last stage.” In September 1969, gave his pieces, which A faculty job he’d hoped to land at Cornell Eastman established sometimes provoked University fell through, and Eastman’s drinking a formal affiliation vehement backlash. and drug use picked up. He worked for a few with the school’s Center of the Creative During an Eastman residency at Northwestern months in the late 80s at a Tower Records in and Performing Arts, becoming a Creative University in early 1980, the school posted Manhattan, and according to his boss there Associate (today the SUNY Buffalo music concert announcements that listed the works (Paul Tai, later of New World Records), library is the main source for archival he’d present: Crazy Nigger, Evil Nigger, Eastman was also in therapy. But he never Eastman material). In fall 1970 he joined Petr and Gay Guerrilla. According to a 2011 history found a place of his own again. Kotik’s S.E.M. Ensemble, the group whose of the residency by Eastman scholar Andrew As Leach has noted, many of Eastman’s 1974 rendition of his piece Femenine was Hanson-Dvoracek, black student alliance For works from this final period—some released in 2016. Eastman also became part Members Only challenged the titles as “racist,” composed, some improvised—seem of the university’s music department, teaching threatened to protest the concert, and demanded preoccupied with spiritual themes, such music theory. a meeting with Eastman and Peter Gena, as Sacred Songs (1980), The Four Books During this period Eastman performed director of Northwestern’s Contemporary of Confucius (1982), Buddha(1984), One extensively as a pianist and vocalist, presenting Music Ensemble. Eastman and Gena agreed God (1985-’86), and Our Father (1989). works by luminaries such as Frederic Rzewski, that public announcements and posters would During these years, Eastman would appear Pauline Oliveros, and Alvin Lucier. (Later in instead list the event as “New Music for Four in “all white toga-like garb,” according to the 70s, he’d stage concerts with Meredith Pianos.” Eastman Packer, as “a tacit Monk, Carman Moore, Tania León, Arthur didn’t change the proclamation of his Russell, and others.) At the Aspen Music titles, but he shared spiritual endeavor.” Festival in July 1970, Eastman sang the U.S. them only inside the Eastman’s premiere of ’s Eight concert hall. spirituality was Songs for a Mad King, a demanding work To explain himself, combinative; though that showcased his vocal agility and theatrical Eastman opened raised Christian, he range. Later that year in the UK he made his January 1980 had many guides. In a studio recording of the piece that was concert with a spoken the interview with nominated for a Grammy in 1973. introduction, which Garland, he professed Most notoriously, Eastman caused a minor appears on Unjust interest in parts of scandal at the 1975 June in Buffalo festival Malaise. “Now there was, there was a little Zen and said he’d been reading the Koran and while performing ’s Song Books. problem with the titles of the pieces,” he said. studying the works of Confucius and Lao Tzu. Loosely interpreting Cage’s already loose “There were some students and one faculty “I live like a wandering monk,” he said. “I’ve direction to “perform a disciplined action,” member who felt that the titles were somehow been fighting with the Lord for a long, long, Eastman brought a man and a woman onstage, derogatory in some manner, being that the long, long time.” Continued. . . 3/3 New World Records

The works on this Sunday’s program convey three saints?) soar above the others with songlike Eastman’s reverence as well as a corresponding voices, while the others maintain an insistent, defiance. First is Gay Guerrilla (1979), followed nonstop pulse. by the solo vocal piece Prelude to the Holy Today one of Eastman’s most popular Presence of Joan d’Arc and The Holy Presence works, The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc inspired of Joan d’Arc (1981) for ten cellos. When Mary Jane Leach to begin her search for his Eastman premiered Gay Guerrilla at his January music. She found a dub of that early 80s radio 1980 Northwestern concert, he explained its title recording in the possession of composer C. as well: Bryan Rulon, then acquired the master tape “These names, either I glorify them or they through engineer Steve Cellum. The first two glorify me,” Eastman said. “And in the case of pages of its score she located in the collections ‘guerrilla,’ that glorifies ‘gay.’ . . . A guerrilla is of the New York Public Library’s Performing someone who in any case is sacrificing his life for Arts Research Center, where they ended up after a point of view. And you know if there is a cause, Eastman failed to reclaim them at the end of a and if it is a great cause, those who belong to that 1982 exhibit. The sheet music most frequently cause will sacrifice their blood because without used today was transcribed from Cellum’s tape blood there is no cause. So therefore that is the by cellist Clarice Jensen. reason that I use ‘gay guerrilla,’ in hopes that I Any transcription of a piece for ten identical might be one if called upon to be one.” instruments is by necessity a painstaking task, Composed for any number of identical and likely to result in an approximation of the instruments but most often performed on original score at best. The love and labor that four pianos (as it was at Northwestern), Gay Jensen devoted to The Holy Presence of Joan Guerrilla begins slowly and somberly—”like d’Arc parallel the time and energy that countless bells tolling,” as concert curator Seth Parker people have poured into this Eastman resurgence. Woods describes it. Over the course of 20 minutes Parker Woods counts himself as part of the it builds to a booming, brazen musical quotation “new generation of champions” of the composer’s of the Lutheran hymn “Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser music. He describes what draws him to it: “You Gott” (“A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”). Though deeds, and like all organizations (especially can hear the fragility, you hear the struggle, but Eastman’s piece is instrumental, the original hymn governments and religious organizations), you hear—at the core of it—you hear beauty, and includes the lines “And though this world, with they oppress in order to perpetuate you hear extreme experimentation . . . [reflecting] devils filled / Should threaten to undo us / We will themselves. Their methods of oppression are on many parts of life: the comedic, the sensitive, not fear, for God hath willed / His truth to triumph legion, but when they find that their more the serious, the strained. It’s all in there, you through us.” subtle methods are failing, they resort to know, in all the different pieces I’ve heard or Eastman wrote Gay Guerrilla in 1979, ten murder. Even now in my own country, my witnessed. And I think now is the time. It’s a years after the Stonewall riots and on the cusp of own people, my own time, gross oppression music we need to hear. [Eastman’s] music is a the devastating AIDS epidemic, as musicologist and murder still continue. Therefore I take social music; it’s a commentary on the times . . . noted in his contribution to your name and meditate upon it, but not as [P]eople are now realizing again.” the book of the same name. Reflecting on this much as I should.” Eastman sought to do good. With his art historical moment, Parker Woods points out that In the piece’s solo vocal prelude, Eastman he addressed moral, social, spiritual, and 1979 was just before “all hell broke loose” for the names the saints that Joan heard: Saint Michael, political questions, not just aesthetic ones. In an gay community, so that the precarious questions Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine. And he autobiographical blurb for a poster advertising of “who could say what” and “who could come repeats their admonition to her: “Joan, speak a 1981 concert, he referenced the Buddha’s out” were newly fraught and unsettled. boldly when they question you.” Eightfold Path: “Right thought, speech and action Joan of Arc inspired Eastman as a symbol The prelude and the piece itself were never are now my main concerns. No other thing is of the indestructibility of the human desire for performed together while Eastman was alive. He as important or as useful. Right thought, Right dignity and freedom. As a leader of the French recorded himself improvising the prelude at his Speech, Right action, Right music.” army during the Hundred Years’ War, she was This quest for “right music”—a fierce seeking captured and put on trial by the English for after the discipline and wisdom necessary to heresy, theft, and cross-dressing, among other create art that operates in alignment with moral crimes. In her defense, she said she’d been truth—must be considered a major part of obeying the voices of saints, but she was burned Eastman’s legacy. He maintained it even through alive in 1431. Almost 500 years later, she was the lean years at the end of his career. “Not canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. When that many people are banging on my door for Eastman premiered The Holy Presence of Joan this or for that,” he admitted in 1984, “so I’m d’Arc at the Kitchen in New York in April 1981, mostly writing imaginary music. No one’s really his program notes read in part: commissioning me.” “Dear Joan, It’s not Eastman’s work that’s changed since “Find presented a work of art, in your then. Audiences have changed, slowly, as the name, full of honor, integrity, and boundless East Village apartment not long before he was public collectively interrogates its assumptions courage. This work of art, like all works of evicted, and in the early 80s it was broadcast on about whose music should be heard, whose voices art in your name, can never and will never the radio before a recording of The Holy Presence should be amplified, and who should be permitted match your most inspired passion. . . . I offer of Joan d’Arc. Contemporary performers can to live their lives to the fullest. The current fervor it as a reminder to those who think that they duplicate that sequence only because multiple for his music suggests that society has begun can destroy liberators by acts of treachery, scholars and performers have transcribed the to apprehend the truth he grasped, however malice, and murder. They forget that the improvised prelude. fleetingly, more than three decades ago. mind has memory. They forget that Good In the words of Parker Woods, The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc is both “a call to prayer” Character is the foundation of all acts. They —Kerry O’Brien think that no one sees the corruption of their and a “call to arms.” Three of its ten cellos (the