Julius eastman license#

The recorded performance reflects a blend of strict adherence to Eastman’s specific instructions with an embrace of individual and collective decision-making within the ensemble, a continuous three-way conversation between Eastman, the individual members of Wild Up, and the group as a whole. In Wild Up’s unique 70-minute interpretation of Eastman’s open score, the ensemble is challenged to work in dialogue with the composer’s own creative impulses in doing so, the band channels his individualistic spirit, augmenting “Femenine” with strategically placed solos-individual cantor-like proclamations. And in 1990, at age 49, Eastman died in Buffalo, New York, less than a decade after the New York City Sheriff’s Department threw most of his scores, belongings, and ephemera into the East Village snow. He swerved through academia, discos, Europe, Carnegie Hall, and the downtown experimental music scene.

Simultaneously static and active, “Femenine” lulls listeners into musical reverie.Įastman was young, gay, and Black at a time when it was even more difficult to be young, gay, and Black. Within “Femenine,” Eastman, whose music The New Yorker hailed as “brazen and brilliant,” evolves material based on a two-note, 13-beat “prime” melody-a cosmic clamoring of bells. 1: Femenine is the opening entry in Wild Up’s multi-volume anthology celebrating Eastman, the late composer whose amalgamated musical vision was repeatedly dismissed during its day, but is now being unearthed to critical acclaim.Ĭhampioned by The New York Times for their “boisterously theatrical sensibility,” Wild Up slowly comes alive inside this recording of “Femenine,” the epitome of Eastman’s longform “organic music”-where phrases live inside of phrases, multiple layers ebbing and flowing with the passage of time. Read 'Hammered Into Clouds: Nine Beginnings for Julius Eastman' by Sasha Frere-Jones on villagevoice.Out now, Los Angeles-based musical collective, Julius Eastman Vol. 'The brazen and brilliant music of Julius Eastman…commands attention: wild, grand, delirious, demonic, an uncontainable personality surging into sound', writes Alex Ross for The New Yorker. In the years since, there has been a steady increase in attention paid to his music and life, punctuated by newly found recordings and manuscripts, the publication of Gay Guerrilla, a comprehensive volume of biographical essays and analysis, worldwide performances and new arrangements of his surviving works, and newfound interest from choreographers, scholars, educators, and journalists. He left behind few scores and recordings, and his music lay dormant for decades until a three-CD set of his compositions was issued in 2005 by New World Records. 'Eastman is something of a cult figure among composers and singers', reads a 1980 press release.ĭespite his prominence in the artistic and musical community in New York, Eastman died homeless and alone in a Buffalo, NY hospital, his death unreported until eight months later, in a Village Voice obituary by Kyle Gann. He was not only a prominent member of New York's downtown scene as a composer, conductor, singer, pianist, and choreographer, but also performed at Lincoln Center with Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic, and recorded experimental disco with producer Arthur Russell. For general inquires, contact Eastman (1940-1990) was an artist who, as a gay, black man, aspired to live those roles to the fullest. For inquiries related to other licensing requests, please see our licensing page. To create a transcription or arrangement, please complete this form to request a license.

Julius eastman license#

In the event performance material is unavailable, a license to prepare an arrangement may be obtained by contacting the Copyright Department of our US office. Materials will become available once readied for performance - please continue to check our site for updates. If available, scores can be viewed on his work pages and on our OnDemand page. Schirmer, we are eager to facilitate the continued international discovery of this American master. The canon of American contemporary music cannot be considered complete without inclusion of Julius Eastman’s compositions, which until recently have gone largely neglected and unpublished. With the continued, international discovery and resurgence of Julius Eastman, the legacy of American music becomes more just and complete.