Julius eastman biography

In many ways, Eastman’s life was one of contradiction. He was a highly regarded Grammy-nominated musician and composer and, for a time, a respected faculty member at a major university. At the same time, he risked disgrace in his unabashed representation of his life. By the late '80s, Eastman encountered a distinct lack of professional opportunities. Eastman’s last job was at Tower Records, after which he suffered from mental illness and addiction. Most of his scores and manuscripts were lost when he was evicted from his apartment and became homeless, living for a time in New York's Tompkins Square Park.

Eastman died alone of cardiac arrest in Buffalo, New York on 28 May 1990. His death went almost unnoticed; it was almost eight months later that music critic Kyle Gann wrote one of his few obituaries, published in The Village Voice. For many years, Eastman's music was forgotten. However, in the late 2010s his work began to be revived, receiving new performances and a cult following. By 2021, more than ten of his works had been recorded and the Los Angeles chamber group Wild Up issued a recording of Eastman's album Femenine, which was named one of the best classical recordings of the year by the U.S. National Public Radio network.



"The transgressive titles of his tracks provided Eastman with the opportunity to confront and detoxify slurs that were frequently used against him"

In 2018, artist Eric Gyamfi stumbled upon a portrait of Eastman on the back of a DIY publication he’d purchased during the Dakar Biennale in Senegal and was immediately moved by Eastman’s life story. Gyamfi describes a strong almost spiritual affinity with the figure of Eastman, who died the year he was born, and who experienced a level of prejudice and volatility that Gyamfi could have also reckoned with: “Seeing that he was an artist, that he was homeless towards the end of his life, that he had lost a lot of his work – those were all things

Concerts in the Kunstbau
with the Munich Philharmonic, Münchener Kammerorchester and Kukuruz Quartett

The Lenbachhaus will host several concerts in February and March 2022 featuring works by the US composer Julius Eastman (1940-1990). Eastman was a representative of minimal music and composed primarily for smaller ensembles, including piano quartet. This rarely performed and challenging music is an impressive example of the international and cross-genre movement of Minimalism. The concerts at Lenbachhaus Kunstbau are intended as a musical complement to important works of Minimal Art in the museum's collection by artists such as Dan Flavin, Marcia Hafif, Rosemary Mayer, Robert Morris, Senga Nengudi, Charlotte Posenenske, and Richard Serra. Moreover, individual pieces by Eastman are important early testimonies to the thematization of racism and homophobia in our societies. Already his original work titles confront us with this theme: with Nigger Faggot (1978), Evil Nigger (1979) or Gay Guerrilla (1979), Eastman addresses racist or homophobic themes consciously and directly, in order to leave no one the possibility to escape the reality of these discriminations. Analogous to the titles, Eastman developed an aesthetic-musical correspondence to the structural racisms of his time, which still exist today. The topicality of his compositions is a sad fact in this context, as he brings before our eyes and ears that even decades later we are still far from a language and society free of discrimination. The verbal violence of the work titles is therefore an unconditional part of Eastman's aesthetic work and these must be written out in the context of the performances so as not to jeopardize the integrity of his work and his intentions.

The collection of the Blaue Reiter—a group of artists who championed the equality and mutual enlightenment of all the arts—has led to a programmatic focus at Lenbachhaus that combines visual art and m

With the continued, international discovery and resurgence of Julius Eastman, the legacy of American music becomes more just and complete. 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. Now that his work has found a home at G. Schirmer, we are eager to facilitate the continued international discovery of this American master.
 
If available, scores can be viewed on his work pages and on our OnDemand page. Materials will become available once readied for performance — please continue to check our site for updates. 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. To create a transcription or arrangement, please complete this form to request a license. For inquiries related to other licensing requests, please see our licensing page. For general inquires, contact schirmer@schirmer.com

Julius Eastman (1940-1990) was a composer, conductor, singer, pianist, and choreographer. A singular figure in New York City's downtown scene of the 1970s and 80s, he also performed at Lincoln Center with Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic, and recorded music by Arthur Russell, Morton Feldman, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Meredith Monk. “What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest," he said in 1976. "Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”
 
Despite his prominence in the artistic and musical community in New York, Eastman died in obscurity in a Buffalo, NY hospital. His death went unreported for eight months, until an obituary by Kyle Gann appeared in the Village Voice. Eastman left behind few scores and recordings, and his music lay dormant for decades until a three-CD set of his compositions titled Unjust Malaise was

Julius Eastman was a composer, vocalist, pianist, choreographer, and dancer. Born in Harlem Hospital in New York City, he trained as a pianist and choirboy while growing up in Ithaca, N.Y. After a year of piano study at Ithaca College, he was accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 1959.

In 1968 he moved to Buffalo, N.Y., where he was a member of the Center of the Creative and Performing Arts (A.K.A the Creative Associates), a SUNY Buffalo music fellowship program founded in 1964 by Lukas Foss and Alan Sapp. Eastman was one of approximately 120 musicians that came to Buffalo as a Creative Associate until the program's close in 1980.

Eastman’s usage of provocative words and performances, notably his 1975 participation in a John Cage piece during the inaugural June in Buffalo Festival in which he made sexual comments about his male and female assistants on stage, was not only to rile audience members, but also make important comments on America’s conservative social and economic stance during an era of non-inclusion and bigotry that plagued the African American and LGBTQ communities.

While in Buffalo, Eastman performed and toured in works by many of the most prominent contemporary composers in the nation,  as well as performing his own pieces. Eastman also wrote compositions for ensembles and/or instruments that he didn't play. Making bold social statements through composition, he embodied the environment of Western New York’s vital experimental and multi-disciplinary art scene. 

“... [O]nce he left Buffalo [for Manhattan in 1976], the tone of the titles of his pieces started to change, from The Moon's Silent Modulation (1970) to If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich (1977), Evil Nigger(1979), etc.,” notes author/composer/performer Mary Jane Leach in The Julius Eastman Project. “Not only had Julius left the protective and nurturing env