Wild Up - Julius Eastman Vol. 5 : Gay Guerilla CD
SKU
39-CD-NWAM-207
Christopher Rountree, conductor
Andrew Tholl, violin
Mona Tian, violin
Darian Donovan Thomas, violin
Andrew McIntosh, viola
Carson Rick, viola
Derek Stein, cello
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Marlon Martinez, bass
Brian Cannady, percussion
Jodie Landau, percussion
Richard Valitutto, piano
Adam Tendler, piano
Rachel Beetz, flute, alto flute
Claire Brazeau, oboe, english horn
Brian Walsh, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, bari saxophone
Shelley Washington, alto saxophone, bari saxophone
Marta Tiesenga, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
Archie Carey, bassoon
Allen Fogle, french horn
Ryan Darke, trumpet
A brilliant, large-scale adaption of this work.
“Wild Up’s latest entry in their decade-long, multiple-time GRAMMY-nominated compendium on the late American composer and polymath Julius Eastman is Gay Guerrilla, a provocative and epochal work that sanctifies queerness and envisions a genuine revolution of gay liberation.
As Eastman shared in remarks preceding Gay Guerrilla’s 1980 premiere: “If there is a cause — and if it is a great cause — those who belong to that cause will sacrifice their blood, because, without blood, there is no cause. So, therefore, that is the reason that I use gay guerrilla, in hopes that I might be one, if called upon to be one.”
On this release, Wild Up draws out the compositional characteristics and urgent themes that mark Eastman as a singular figure in American Experimentalism: queered allusions to Lutheran hymnals, almost unbearably tense passages of frenzied repetition, and explosions of melodic ecstasy. It’s a testament to the ensemble’s carefully-honed ability to perform Eastman’s idiosyncratic scores in a spirit befitting its creator.
With this imposing rendition, Wild Up reaffirms the point made by the musicologist and composer Luciano Chessa: “If all of Eastman’s music but this one were to disappear, Gay Guerrilla would still be enough to guarantee him a firm place in the history of twentieth-century music.’”
- LabelNew Amsterdam
- UPC4062548135886