Let's talk about Wild Up and Julius Eastman
“What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest. Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.” - Julius Eastman
My name is Jan, the publicist at NewAm Records. Besides publishing and teaching, I spend most of my time researching and practicing music composition. Many of my experiences – from listening, studying, thinking about, or speaking with certain people — have marked my journey as a composer. Speaking with Christopher Rountree, the founder, conductor, and creative director of the pathbreaking L.A. chamber orchestra Wild Up, about the work of Julius Eastman was one of those moments. Wild Up's process involves dissecting music compositions, learning them, and creating a space and dialogue with his entire body of work, which is worth sharing with the world.
In my research on the life and work of Eastman, a series of quotes or sentiments have been reiterated across the board over and over and over that capture the essence of his work.
In a 1976 interview with the Buffalo Evening News, Eastman shared, “What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest. Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”
We will come back to this.
During one of my studies with the incredible saxophonist and composer Anna Webber, we spoke a lot about how — as jazz composers — it is essential to remember that the music is coming from the African diaspora and to honor that in any way that we can see fit in our artistic voice. Her approach to this was to talk about rhythm. No matter how abstracted, broken, or alien the sounds she creates through her ensemble are, they always feel good in your body. When I asked her about this, she told me that that is a thing she keeps in mind at all times. Is this rhythm, even if complicated, something the listener can move to? Is it something that makes people have a visceral, physical reaction? I find the music of Julius Eastman has this exact element.
In response to this thought, Chris told me, “I think this is one of the reasons why we like Eastman's works so much, his music feels like it's of the body.”
Eastman's music is intense, beautiful, challenging, physical, and open. It embodies things that the great minimalist composers tried to get at. They were trying to get at open forms (Terry Riley), interesting rhythmic patterning (Steve Reich), and beautiful harmony (Philip Glass). The working bodies of Eastman have all these qualities at once, simultaneously intellectually engaging on a deep, analytical level while at the same time remaining a Herculean feat of performance.
Chris explained, “The scores are much more open. He gives performers time codes where you know you're doing one gesture, and it's turning into another. But because he's giving you this long period, maybe a minute to go from one gesture to another gesture, and then everybody is doing that at their own rate, what you get is something that, to me, feels like birds murmuring or like a school of fish. It's very organic and of the natural world: people swarming together. I think that's why the pieces are so striking; they have this unique quality based on this one compositional idea.”
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fe862c837-078f-4b34-8520-0142fd334193_2279x1547.jpeg)
We must look no further than Seth Parker Wood’s solo endeavors on The Holy Presence of Joan d'Arc from Wild Up Vol. 4 for the Herculean idea. Chris summed it up perfectly. “As we know, so many performers are all kinds of athletes. When they pick a mountain to climb, they need to go all the way up. It can be big sometimes. You know, you look at a mountain and think, ‘Oh.. that looks smaller from back there.’ I feel like this piece was just brutally hard, and Seth did such incredibly virtuosic work in learning and performing all of the parts. That's seriously some insane feat of pure determination.”
The other side of Eastman’s work that has become clear is his capacity to stir the pot and create dialogue. Eastman was a capital A Artist — with all of the complications and beauties that come along with that title. Eastman embodied the contradictions and difficulties that it was to be himself in the time when he was alive. Most of these contradictions are seen in the titling of his pieces. Chris shared that Eastman’s goal was to “challenge every presupposition about classical music. Who is this music for? Who is allowed to perform it? Who is allowed to be in power? What does the room need to feel like because the work is conceptual and about race, gender, and sexuality?” Eastman desired to challenge the marquee. The titling of his pieces has created a dialogue around censorship between performers and institutions.
His music encapsulates not only a feeling but one idea or identity. The music is everything it's supposed to be: challenging, physically demanding, beautiful, and moving, and supposed to push the performer and the listener through their discomfort into a level of catharsis.
Wild Up has been championing Eastman’s work for over a decade now. Their approach to this oeuvre is just as extreme as Eastman’s sentiments on himself. In 2023, Wild Up performed "Stay On It" on NPR's Tiny Desk series. I was floored by how intense, intricate, loud, and crazy that performance gets as the formalities of concert music are thrown out the window. In their place, Wild Up delivers and screams LOUDNESS and FUN. There's fun to be had with this music and the experience each member is putting forward. Challenges can be fun. Challenges are what help us grow. The catalog of Julius Eastman seems to be one of those kinds of music that will challenge the listener and the performer. But ultimately, humanity will be better from it.
Julius Eastman Vol 4: The Holy Presence was released on June 21st, 2024 and featured on NPR Music, Bandcamp Daily, WNYC New Sounds, Night After Night, and Cultural Attache.