Julius Eastman

about

Julius Eastman (October 27, 1940–May 28, 1990) was an African-American composer, pianist, vocalist, and dancer of minimalist tendencies. His music was among the first to combine minimalist processes with elements of pop music, and he often gave his pieces titles of provocative political intent, such as Evil Nigger and Gay Guerrilla. Eastman grew up in Ithaca, New York, where he began studying piano at age 14 and made rapid progress. He began college at Ithaca College and transferred to the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied piano with Mieczyslaw Horszowski and composition with Constant Vauclain, and switched majors from piano to composition. He made his debut as a pianist in 1966 at Town Hall in New York City. He was also possessed of a rich, deep, and extremely flexible singing voice. The latter became famous owing to his 1973 Nonesuch recording of Eight Songs for a Mad King by the British composer Peter Maxwell Davies. Eastman's talents brought him to the attention of composer-conductor Lukas Foss, who conducted his music with the Brooklyn Philharmonic. Eastman's music was often written according to what he considered an "organic" principle by which 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." The principle is most evident in his three works for four pianos, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and Gay Guerrilla, all from around 1979. The last of these appropr

top songs

albums

Julius Eastman: Unjust Malaise

Julius Eastman, Vol. 1: Femenine

Eastman

Unjust Malaise

Femenine

Julius Eastman, Vol. 2: Joy Boy

Clayton: The Julius Eastman Memory Depot

Evil Nigger (Live on the Black Power Live Broadcast, Los Angeles, 2020)

Julius Eastman Vol. 3: If You're so Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?

Three Extended Pieces for Four Pianos

Eastman: Evil Nigger / Gay Guerrilla

Evil Nigger

similar artists