[Julius
Eastman (1940-1990)]
Sequenza 21/
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.”
