The piece’s most notable quality, one it shares with its closest relative, Stay On It (1973), is a score with lengthy segments where improvisation is encouraged around the repeating syncopated marimba melody. It features a more traditional ensemble consisting of winds, pitched percussion, piano and bass, unlike 1979’s Evil N-r, which demands identical instruments to be quadrupled. The piece is more firmly based in pitch than the rhythm-oriented works he would compose later.
When he’d show up to a rehearsal in black leather and chains, or to an event for composers wearing a dress and serving soup, he certainly understood why people were bothered, but expressed his disagreement with style and discipline by being a magnetic presence in every space he entered, and laser-focusing on perfectly executing what he set out to do.įemenine, while lacking the hallmarks of his most overtly experimental works, provides all the clues for how he would get there. He was uncompromising in asserting his blackness and gayness in the white and (presumed) straight dominated spaces of avant-garde music, but it’s less clear if other ways he expressed himself that some saw as peculiar were truly intended to push people’s buttons. Although occasionally provocative on purpose - as with the titling of some of his pieces or the famous incident with his performance of John Cage’s Song Books - Eastman sometimes upset people simply being himself. The relaxed nature of the performance was troubling to some too, leading them to wonder how seriously he was taking it. Eastman, some recall, was wearing a dress, which bothered the more conservative in the crowd. Eastman described the piece as sounding like “the angels opening up heaven,” continuing on to pose the question: “Should we say euphoria?”Ī few members of the audience, however, were not comfortable. Soup was served at the event, which Eastman prepared himself at the home of the event’s organizer, Julie Kabat. The occasion was in informal one, with many in attendance freely talking and moving around. Ensemble, Eastman was insistent that his audience be comfortable. Performed at a Composers Forum event to a group of his peers alongside his friends and collaborators, the S.E.M. On November 6th, 1974, the late minimalist composer Julius Eastman debuted Femenine, a piece he had written earlier that year, in Albany, New York. II, The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend's Love for the Beloved is edited by Luciano Chessa and published by Music Sales/G. The Julius Eastman score for Symphony No. Luciano Chessa contributed a chapter on Eastman's "minimalist choralphantasie" Gay Guerrilla for the book Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music (2015), edited by Renée Levine Packer and Mary Jane Leach.
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Presented with Sarah Cahill's Series at the Berkeley Art Museum, the event garnered the first full write-up on Eastman by a major paper, the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2012 Luciano Chessa curated the first-ever Eastman retrospective. + Eastman's fully lived life: composition, performance, love, socio-political action
+ Eastman and his 19th-century musical heritage Luciano Chessa's deep knowledge of and continued curiosity about Julius Eastman and his music are bringing forth new insights on the music of Eastman's time and the classical music that inspired him. World Premiere: NovemMannes Orchestra Luciano Chessa, conductor New York City II, The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend's Love for the Beloved Through the knowledge and vision of Luciano Chessa, the Julius Eastman catalog comes to life in performance and contextual programming that illuminate the work of Eastman, a queer, black American whose story embodies the socio-political environment of the '70s and '80s.Ĭontact Mary Madigan at Madigan Arts to discuss engaging Luciano Chessa as advisor, curator, conductor. Luciano Chessa led the world premiere performance by the Mannes Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center, New York City. II, The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend's Love for the Beloved - was first heard on November 20, 2018. Julius Eastman's only known symphonic composition - Symphony No.
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