Music

Julius Eastman gets overdue recognition at the MaerzMusik festival

12. März 2017
Photo by unknown artist

Mar. 14, 2017 – Ever heard of the black gay artist who spanned the jazz, experimental and academic music worlds of the 20th century? The name Julius Eastman should be, by all accounts, more widely hailed, all the more so considering his unique set of artistic inclinations. “I think what played a role in his marginalization was the male, heterosexual, white-dominated contemporary music discourse and scene, even in the experimental context of New York –” Berno Odo Polzer, artistic director of the MaerzMusik festival, told SIEGESSÄULE, “not to speak about the European context, which was and is even worse in this respect.”

Thanks in part to his surviving friends, the artist’s work is now experiencing somewhat of a revival. Eastman is best known for his experimental, (post)minimalist approach as well as his rich, unflinching voice. He wasn’t limited to purely aesthetic endeavors; he was, as Polzer puts it, “one of the few in contemporary music of his time who confronted racism, homophobia and capitalism.” Apropos, “Evil Nigger”, “Gay Guerilla” and “Crazy Nigger” will be performed by four pianists at the opening of MaerzMusik, and the Savvy gallery will host an Eastman archive with recordings, video footage and performances.

Following a period of drug dependence and homelessness, Eastman died of cardiac arrest, alone at a hospital in Buffalo in 1990. He was 49, and it would take eight months for an obituary to be printed. Similarly, it would require another two decades for his work to attain the level of exposure deserving of its brilliance. The word “trailblazer” doesn’t quite do Eastman justice, partly because he’d probably find it a lazy characterization, and partly because not much in the world of experimental music has changed since his departure. Let’s hope the 21st century can re-write this historical wrong.

Riri Hylton

MaerzMusik, Mar. 16-26
Opening: Mar. 17 at Haus der Berliner Festspiele

Let Sonorities Ring – Julius Eastman
Mar. 16-26 at Savvy Contemporary

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