![]() His music - what is left of it (much is lost, all of it a mess) - requires Herculean reconstruction efforts. Whether through the shocking titles for many of his pieces or his relationships with lovers and cherished colleagues, he challenged so many forms of prejudice.Įastman, who was born in 1940, rose like a comet with spectacular flair and flamed out just as stunningly, dying at 50 in obscurity - homeless and alone. It didn’t matter whether you were white or Black, straight or gay: He had something up his sleeve for any of us. He could be - personally and in his art - lovable and discomfiting. ![]() He was proudly and provocatively Black and gay. It would be hard to find an artist who personifies so many issues of our day - Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights, homelessness, income inequality, mental health, addiction, you name it.Īn extraordinarily gifted composer, vocalist, pianist, dancer and choreographer, Eastman had a magnetic presence and gripping sense of theater. The growing Julius Eastman revival throughout the new music community in the past few years seems, particularly from hindsight, inevitable. Both parties share the goal of addressing where the organization went wrong and driving change for the future, Tines said.ĭiti Kohli can be reached at. As of this week, the singer was already in talks with his Rockport Music contacts. The dispute has sparked a constructive conversation about race and inclusion, Tines added. The institution and its leaders care, Tines said, even if they fell short in this instance. Rockport Music has presented the singer’s advocacy-based projects in the past, including one last year on police brutality. In the end, Tines said the situation should not be reduced to a “cancel culture” moment. Why didn’t I learn about him at Harvard? Why didn’t I hear about him at Juilliard in my contemporary music classes? I wanted to share him with the world as much as I could.” “And he’s often left off music curriculums. “Even though there’s all these think pieces about Eastman, most people don’t know him,” Tines said. In light of the controversy, Tines regrets that fewer people will know who Eastman was. Despite his widely-regarded genius, the composer experienced mental illness and homelessness. The episode is especially painful for Tines, who deeply identifies with Eastman, a man who lived on the fringes of polite society and classical music culture. “Censoring the titles is censoring Eastman,” she said. Mary Jane Leach, a composer and the co-editor of the 2015 book “Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music,” supported Tines’s decision to pull the piece. Then I figured, ’Don’t talk to me about what I should present to the public and how to distribute my work.’” “In the beginning, my immediate thought was ’Maybe I should censor it,’” he said. Instead, he would publicly stand for and with creators who fought for racial justice and equity. Pulling the project showed he was no longer willing to do so. Tines declined.Ī graduate of Harvard and Juilliard who grew up in rural Virginia, the vocalist has spent much of his life contorting his actions and language for exclusionary white spaces, he said. The organization requested that Tines alter the video in some way, possibly by changing the placement of the titles or adding symbols to obscure the full spelling of offensive words. Shiffman added that he was “deeply moved by the video, as was team.” “As such, Rockport will not show the video as is.” “While it is absolutely clear that the screen shots with the provocative titles are to describe Eastman’s own choice of title, and it is also clear how you have contextualized these titles, the concern is that the video will not be seen in its entirety, will be misunderstood,” he wrote. ![]() 5 to explain the organization’s reasoning. The chamber festival’s artistic director, Barry Shiffman, e-mailed Tines on Aug. ![]() A statement said that “if taken out of context, could be seen as insensitive and inflammatory.” After previewing the 13-minute video, Rockport leadership feared the titles could be viewed out of context, possibly creating a backlash. “It’s about teaching people about identity, and why Eastman chose to be so bold about his race and sexuality. “It wasn’t about the shock value of the titles,” he said. Tines, who is also Black, displayed these titles around the video’s seven-minute mark, with bold lettering and not a single asterisk. In an effort to bring uncomfortable topics into rarefied concert halls, the composer would name his pieces using homophobic and racial slurs, including the N-word. Those differences concerned the provocative nature of Eastman’s work, specifically his composition titles.
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