Overview
A compelling portrait of composer-performer Julius Eastman's enigmatic and intriguing life and music. Composer-performer Julius Eastman (1940-90) was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay, straight, classical music, disco, academia, and downtown New York. His music, insistent and straightforward, resists labels and seethes with a tension that resonates with musicians, scholars, and audiences today. Eastman's provocative titles, including Gay Guerrilla, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and others, assault us with his obsessions. Eastman tested limits with his political aggressiveness, as reflected in legendary scandals like his June 1975 performance of John Cage's Song Books, which featured homoerotic interjections, and the uproar over his titles at Northwestern University. These episodes are examples of Eastman's persistence in pushing the limits of the acceptable in the highly charged arenas of sexual and civil rights. In addition to analyses of Eastman's music, the essays in Gay Guerrilla provide background on his remarkable life history and the era's social landscape. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist that is compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American studies, gay rights, and civil rights. This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union.
Full Product Details
Author: Renee Levine-Packer (Customer) ,
Mary Jane Leach (Customer) ,
Renee Levine-Packer (Customer) ,
David Borden (Contributor)
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Imprint: University of Rochester Press
Volume: v. 129
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.40cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.614kg
ISBN: 9781580465342
ISBN 10: 158046534
Pages: 284
Publication Date: 15 December 2015
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
A fascinating new collection of essays exploring the life and work of the enigmatic composer Julius Eastman ... who worked fluently in jazz, improvisation and acoustical experiments. An indication of his impact is the very fact that so many people have come together (in this book) to remember him and are actively championing his music. Most of his compositions were once thought to be lost, but (co-editor) Leach has been collecting and disseminating the pieces for almost 20 years. ALBANY (NY) TIMES-UNION The publication of this rigorously researched, lovingly produced, multidimensional study of a singular artist will surely be met with joy by those of us who remember Julius Eastman--the inspired creator, the sly provocateur and martyred saint of the avant-garde. For those who are interested in iconoclasts of whatever stripe, this volume will be a revelation and an invitation to rethink what composition, performance, and life at the precipice of madness can be. --Bill T. Jones, choreographer and dancer Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music has arrived just in time for Black Lives Matter and gets my deepest praise. This important volume of essays, brought forth by two brilliant women who have long championed Eastman's music, belongs in every music conservatory library and beyond. --Pauline Oliveros, composer
The 12 main essays, by musicians, historians and scholars with...knowledge of Eastman the man, together give a picture of him - charismatic performer, magnetic personality and emotional escape artist - that puts his work in a context larger and more representative. BAY AREA REPORTER A composer of visionary power, a singer with a cavernous bass voice, a collaborator with the diverse likes of Meredith Monk and Pierre Boulez, Eastman had long been a fixture of the New York Music scene. . . . Part of the pleasure of Eastman's rediscovery has been the belated, deserving reinsertion of a black, gay figure into music history. --Zachary Woolfe, THE NEW YORK TIMES (O)utspoken about his own identity as a black queer man . . . Eastman was ahead of his time. His music is politics by other means, in search of a form, alighting toward a future that could grant him dignity, when he could be something other than an abstraction. --Hua Hsu, THE NEW YORKER A fascinating new collection of essays exploring the life and work of the enigmatic composer Julius Eastman . . . who worked fluently in jazz, improvisation and acoustical experiments. An indication of his impact is the very fact that so many people have come together (in this book) to remember him and are actively championing his music. Most of his compositions were once thought to be lost, but (co-editor) Leach has been collecting and disseminating the pieces for almost 20 years. ALBANY (NY) TIMES-UNION The publication of this rigorously researched, lovingly produced, multidimensional study of a singular artist will surely be met with joy by those of us who remember Julius Eastman--the inspired creator, the sly provocateur and martyred saint of the avant-garde. For those who are interested in iconoclasts of whatever stripe, this volume will be a revelation and an invitation to rethink what composition, performance, and life at the precipice of madness can be. --Bill T. Jones, choreographer and dancer Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music has arrived just in time for Black Lives Matter and gets my deepest praise. This important volume of essays, brought forth by two brilliant women who have long championed Eastman's music, belongs in every music conservatory library and beyond. --Pauline Oliveros, composer
The publication of this rigorously researched, lovingly produced, multidimensional study of a singular artist will surely be met with joy by those of us who remember Julius Eastman--the inspired creator, the sly provocateur and martyred saint of the avant-garde. For those who are interested in iconoclasts of whatever stripe, this volume will be a revelation and an invitation to rethink what composition, performance, and life at the precipice of madness can be. --Bill T. Jones, choreographer and dancer Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music has arrived just in time for Black Lives Matter and gets my deepest praise. This important volume of essays, brought forth by two brilliant women who have long championed Eastman's music, belongs in every music conservatory library and beyond. --Pauline Oliveros, composer
Author Information
Renée Levine-Packer is an arts administrator and author of This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo (OUP 2010). Mary Jane Leach is a composer and performer and has been very active in recovering and reviving the music of Julius Eastman. Renée Levine-Packer is an arts administrator and author of This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo (OUP 2010). Mary Jane Leach is a composer and performer and has been very active in recovering and reviving the music of Julius Eastman.
