Julius Eastman (October 27, 1940 – May 28, 1990) was an American composer. He was among the first composers to combine the processes of some minimalist music with other methods of extending and modifying his music as in some experimental music. He thus created what he called "organic music". In compositions like Stay On It (1973), his melodic motifs were not unlike the catchy refrains of then pop music.
He studied performance and composition in New York and contributed to new music scenes in New York City, Buffalo, New York, and Chicago, Illinois, touring and recording as a performer and enjoying many performances of his own music. As a conductor, musician, and vocalist, he had a close artistic relationship with Arthur Russell and worked briefly with Meredith Monk and Pierre Boulez. His voice can be heard in the Nonesuch recording of Peter Maxwell Davies' Eight Songs for a Mad King. He worked in a variety of musical styles, including classical, jazz, and crossover.
During the 1970s (and perhaps shortly thereafter), he openly expressed himself in terms of his race, sexual orientation, or both in at least one performance and also in his compositions, including Gay Guerrilla. These gestures were not well received. He began to contend with a lack of professional opportunities, falling into relative obscurity while struggling with substance use and homelessness in the 1980s.
After his early, possibly HIV/AIDS-related death in 1990, Kyle Gann remembered him in a much belated 1991 obituary in the Village Voice. In the 21st century, his work rose to international prominence within contemporary classical music. There have been many recent professional editions, performances, and recordings of his music, as well as some extended scholarly treatments of his life and work.
Julius Eastman grew up in Ithaca, New York, with his mother, Frances Eastman, and younger brother, Gerry. He began studying piano at age 14 and made rapid progress. He studied at Ithaca College before transferring to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. There he studied piano with Mieczysław Horszowski and composition with Constant Vauclain, and switched majors from piano to composition, graduating in 1963.
He made his debut as a pianist in 1966 at The Town Hall in New York City. Eastman had a rich, deep, and extremely flexible singing voice, for which he became noted in his 1973 Nonesuch recording of Eight Songs for a Mad King by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Eastman's talents gained the attention of composer-conductor Lukas Foss, who conducted Davies' music in performance at the Brooklyn Philharmonic.
Early career and controversy in Buffalo
At the behest of Foss, Eastman joined the Creative Associates — a "prestigious program in avant-garde classical music" that "carried a stipend but no teaching obligations"—at SUNY Buffalo's Center for the Creative and Performing Arts. During this period, he met Petr Kotik, a Czech-born composer, conductor, and flutist. Eastman and Kotik performed together extensively in the early to mid-1970s. Along with Kotik, Eastman was a founding member of the S.E.M. Ensemble.
From 1971 he performed and toured with the group, and composed numerous works for it. During this period, fifteen of Eastman's earliest works were performed by the Creative Associates, including Stay On It (1973), an early augury of postminimalism and one of the first art music compositions inspired by progressions from popular music, presaging the later innovations of Arthur Russell and Rhys Chatham.
Although Eastman began to teach theory and composition courses over the course of his tenure, he left Buffalo in 1975 following a controversially ribald performance of John Cage's aleatoric Song Books by the S.E.M. Ensemble under the aegis of Morton Feldman. It included nudity interpolated by Eastman. Cage was incensed and said during an ensuing lecture that Eastman's "[ego] ... is closed in on homosexuality. And we know this because he has no other idea to express." Additionally, Eastman's friend Kyle Gann has speculated that his inability to acclimate to the more bureaucratic elements of academic life (including paperwork) may have hastened his departure from the university.
Shortly thereafter, Eastman settled in New York City, where he initially straddled the divide between the conventionally bifurcated "uptown" and downtown music scenes. Eastman often wrote his music following what he called an "organic" principle. Each new section of a work contained all the information from previous sections, though sometimes "the information is taken out at a gradual and logical rate."
This principle is clearest in his three works for four pianos, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and Gay Guerrilla, all from around 1979. The last of these appropriates Martin Luther's hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," as a gay manifesto. Eastman said Northwestern University faculty regarded his "'Nigger' series" titles as derogatory, to which he replied that he "eschew[ed the] superficial or ... elegant", referring to the historical accomplishments of Black people and to the enduring effects of slavery in the United States.
In 1976, Eastman participated in a performance of Eight Songs for a Mad King conducted by Pierre Boulez at Lincoln Center. He served as the first male vocalist in Meredith Monk's ensemble, as documented on her influential album Dolmen Music (1981). He fostered a strong kinship and collaboration with Arthur Russell, conducting nearly all of his orchestral recordings (compiled as First Thought Best Thought [Audika Records, 2006]) and participating (as organist and vocalist) in the recording of 24→24 Music (1982; released under the imprimatur of Dinosaur L), a controversial disco-influenced composition that included the underground dance hits "Go Bang!" and "In the Cornbelt"; both featured Eastman's trademark bravado.
During this period, he also played in a jazz ensemble with his brother Gerry, who previously played guitar in the Count Basie Orchestra. He played in and conducted the Brooklyn Philharmonia's CETA Orchestra (funded by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act under the administration of the Cultural Council Foundation). He also coordinated the Philharmonia's Community Concert Series in conjunction with Foss and other composers of color. By 1980, he was regularly touring across the United States and internationally; a recording of a performance from that year at Northwestern University was released on the posthumous compilation Unjust Malaise (2005).
A 1981 piece for Eastman's cello ensemble, The Holy Presence of Joan d'Arc, was performed at The Kitchen in New York City. In 1986, the choreographer Molissa Fenley set her dance, Geologic Moments, to music of Philip Glass and two works by Eastman (an unknown work for two pianos and "One God" in which Eastman sang and played piano), which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Despondent about what he saw as a dearth of worthy professional opportunities, Eastman grew increasingly dependent on drugs after 1983. His life fell apart; many of his scores were impounded by the New York City Sheriff's Office following an eviction in the early 1980s, further impeding his professional development. While homeless, he briefly took refuge in Tompkins Square Park. His hope for a lectureship at Cornell University also failed to materialize during this period.
Despite a temporary attempt at a comeback, Eastman died alone at the age of 49 in Millard Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo, New York. Kyle Gann's January 22, 1991 Village Voice column served as Eastman's then months-belated obituary. While Eastman's death certificate cited cardiac arrest, sources speculate (and differ) as to whether his death may have been due to complications from HIV/AIDS. David Borden did not want to ask Eastman's mother and wrote that he was "evidently on the verge of starvation".
Eastman reportedly told the nurses he had no family or friends, but he did give them the name of his Buffalo roommate, dancer-choreographer Karl Singletary, who passed the news to Eastman's mother. Revival of Eastman's music has been a difficult task and has depended on people who worked with him because his notational methods were loose and open to interpretation.