![]() The same year, the London Contemporary Music Festival put on the first major festival of his music, followed by the “ That Which is Fundamental” exhibition and concert series in 2017. ![]() In 2016, Mary Jane Leach and Renée Levine Packer co-edited Gay Guerrilla, a series of essays on Eastman’s work which revealed fresh facets of his art. From remaining virtually unheard in the wake of his tragically early death in 1990, his works are now regularly performed across Europe and America. Since the release of the box set Unjust Malaisein 2005, Eastman’s own reputation as a composer has undergone a significant revival. To remedy this, Eastman suggested, the composer must “reassert him/herself as an active part of the musical community,” becoming a “total musician, not only a composer. Since the days of church organists, court composers, and itinerant troubadours, Eastman argues, there’s been a split between solo performers, star conductors, and the composers now rendered lonely “queen bees” cut from the collective process of music-making. ![]() The composer Julius Eastman makes this point in his short, provocative essay “The Composer as Weakling” (1979), tracing a brief but ambitious history of Western “classical music” to suggest a radical shift in how we view the relation between composing and performance. “Music was born in 1700, lived a full life until 1850 at which time music caught an incurable disease and finally died in 1900.” At least, so one might surmise, given the present state of things.
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