Julius Eastman: A Power Greater Than Review – Davonne Tynes celebrates maverick musician | classical music

CA musician, pianist, performance artist, and choreographer, Julius Eastman wandered the New York City and downtown arts scenes for two decades before dying in obscurity in a Buffalo hospital in 1990. In recent years, there has been a steady resurgence of interest in him and his work—not just as a black, gay composer, but as an important musical figure whose simple, maverick rhythms earned him a reputation for artistic confrontation.

This concert, part of the Barbican residency of American bass-baritone Davon Tynes, provided a snapshot of his eclectic output. “Touch It When,” here arranged for electric guitar and performed with ferocity by Gigi, explores Eastman’s belief in music as a performance art. The distortion and reverb pedals gave the music a devastating metal feel as both harmonious and dissonant waves crashed and burned. At the opposite end of the spectrum was “Piano 2,” a traditional, early-20th-century trio work presented with quiet authority by pianist Conor Haneke.

The Sacred Presence of Joan of Arc, composed for 10 cellos, features tumultuous rhythms undercut by mournful phrases that rise and fall. Eastman is clearly identified with the medieval warrior and challenger of sexual norms. The originally improvised introduction, in which Joan’s spirit guides call on her to speak boldly, was sung by Tynes, his voice echoing like a fist in a velvet glove as he passed down the hall. Cellist Seth Parker Woods, who also orchestrated the concert, played live against nine pre-recorded lines. It was a good performance, but how strong could it have been with the other nine cellists?

Eastman’s music was often reworked to suit whatever powers he had at his disposal. Here, the famous Gay Guerilla song is arranged for three pianists on piano, cello, electric guitar and voice with dancers and choreography by Kyle Marshall. Percussion chords built and changed, gaining harmonic complexity until, two-thirds of the way through, the music erupted with searing repetitions of the Lutheran battle hymn Ein Veste Burg. Dressed as two immortal soldiers, Khalid Dunton and José La Paz Rodríguez stalk and circle each other in an increasingly sensual duet as the lines between sleep and death, sex and combat become progressively blurred.