Reconstructing Julius Eastman
In the classical music world there aren’t many people of color, that goes for musicians, singers and even fewer composers. There are a whole host of reasons why - ranging from lack of access to conservatory training, to white-washed histories and of course, some good ol’ fashion racism. It should go with out saying that none of the reasons are “black people just aren’t into classical music” as some might have you believe. To the contrary POC have contributed greatly over the centuries to classical music. Not only as listeners but as composers and prominent musicians. Take for example Mozart’s rival Chevalier de Saint Georges (1745 -1799) one of the baddest cats of the 18th century. He revolutionized solo violin playing as we know it today and produced a significant body of work while maintaining a career as a champion fencer. Mozart hated this dude so much he based the villain of his opera The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) off of him.
There are countless other unsung heros of color in the histories of classical music. This isn’t about there not being enough black folks in classical music, this is about someone who is black and was a mover and shaker in classical music.
Gather ‘round chill-drun and hear the tale of a black history month miracle…
I’m currently working on an assignment to reconstruct a long lost score of Afro-American composer and LGTB activist Julius Eastman (1940-1990). The work is called Thruway (1970) written for a small orchestra, chorus and pre-recorded tape. For the uninitiated a score is a musical blueprint. It tells you who in the orchestra plays what notes, when to play them, when to play loud or soft, and if there are singers the score will also contain the text. If you’re lucky enough to get your hands on a hand-written manuscript from the composer, it might even have some insight which might not make it into the published print edition. If you want to perform the work of a composer you absolutely need a score! It needs to be legible and accurate. Now there’s good news and there’s bad news in my case. The bad news is that Eastman didn’t leave behind many printed scores. He was present at most of the performances of his works during his life and was able to tell the musicians what to do or, as an accomplished pianist and singer, he would often performed the works himself from memory. The good news in this case is that there is an existing copy of the score for Thruway! More bad news: I don’t have access to that copy and I only have pictures of the score that were taken with a point and shoot camera in a room lit with the ambience of a cave.
I got to work right away as a musical archeologist, squinting at these little jpegs trying to discern musical notation from text, shadows, page wrinkles and random pen scratches. I almost threw in the towel a few times, set to deeming this as impossible with the sources I had at my disposal. I decided to take a break from it. I went over to my window and sat there looking defeated and all pouty until I noticed an old tablet of mine sitting in a box of mostly outdated electronics. There’s an MP3 player in there, old phone chargers, an iTouch, probably a beeper. Anyone who knows anything about electronic knows that the Ellipsis 7 tablet is a piece of garbáge. Verizon was pretty much giving these things away so you could look cool and compete with your friends who had fully functioning iPads. It barely connected to the internet when it was brand new and if you had a smart phone it could probably do everything the tablet was suppose to do anyway. It was quickly retired to a box of battery powered paper weights. Before its retirement it even stopped turning on and since had not been turned on in over a year, maybe two. Something was telling me to plug it in. Perhaps the ghost of Eastman? (He did live in South Philly for a short time in the late 60’s.) To my surprise not only did it turn on once the battery was charged but it effortlessly connected to my wifi network (BeethovenWasBlack). I couldn’t believe it! I was able to download the images of Eastman’s score and enhance the quality and actually zoom in on his writing. I was able to see hand written instructions like “players must play only the essence of jazz. Not popular tunes or rhythms, but jazzed and improvisatory in nature.” - “chorus goes back to stage as if frightened” and “visibly chorus member dies while standing”. It was incredible! I was able to see that this wasn’t just a choral work with orchestra but this was a staged performance piece. It was a Black History Month miracle! You should hear Julius Eastman’s - The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc written for 8 cellos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prfD5o9d-aI
The first and only book dedicated solely to Eastman just dropped this week Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music
Also the University of Buffalo has just released press clippings, concert programs, reviews - over 340 items - are now viewable online.
