Sequenza 21/: Julius 'Eastman's music...spoke loud and clear'

[Julius Eastman (1940-1990)]

Sequenza 21/

Close Encounters of the Tragic Kind

Posted by Michael McDonagh in Contemporary Classical

“People love tragedy, at least, in the literary sense, and Mozart and Schubert’s early deaths were certainly tragic. The death of the talented gay and black composer Julius Eastman (1940-1990) has many of the same elements of classic tragedy. With Eastman, who was also apparently self destructive in both his professional and private life, those elements included crack addiction homelessness, and dying alone in a Buffalo New York hospital of cardiac arrest. It is certainly a juicy story. But none of this would matter if his work didn’t speak to people, and Eastman’s music, which was performed by Italian composer and pianist Luciano Chessa, Sarah Cahill and four other pianists, and two singers recently at the Berkeley Art Musician, spoke loud and clear.

“Eastman’s focus on the materiality of sound itself seemed to be both text and subtext of his music here. Two a capella pieces exploited this materiality in its most basic form.” “The two large scale pieces for six pianos which rounded out the program were equally powerful, though their political agendas were hard to discern.” “And the sound? The pianos, separately miked from the back brought one this side of heaven.”