What's On

Julius Eastman: (Masculine) | (Femenine)

with Monday Evening Concerts

GETTY CENTER

Saturday, April 29, 2023, at 6 pm

Sunday, April 30, 2023, at 4 pm

Museum Courtyard

Free

In the summer of 1975, composer Julius Eastman (1940–1990) presented two works at a concert held at the Albright Knox Museum of Art in Buffalo, New York. One ensemble performed Femenine (composer's spelling)—a composition that has been widely rediscovered in recent years as an under-recognized modern masterpiece—inside a gallery, while another ensemble performed a piece titled Masculine outside. This simultaneous presentation placed the audience in a space caught between Masculine and Femenine as they moved between both performances.

Today, no record or score exists of Eastman's Masculine. To fill the void left by this lost piece of music, three unique artists present new works that expound on both the idea of masculinity and the complex and radiant legacy of Julius Eastman—a figure who navigated radically interdisciplinary artistic communities within classical, avant-garde, popular, and underground music.

The commissioned artists include classical vocalist and artist Davóne Tines, experimental composer Sarah Hennies, and visual and sound artist Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork. These new compositions will be staged simultaneously with Eastman's Femenine, performed by Monday Evening Concerts' ECHOI ensemble, in various locations at the Getty Center, replicating the compelling dynamic of the original 1975 event.

Julius Eastman: (Masculine) | (Femenine) is a co-production Monday Evening Concerts and Getty Museum Public Programs.

PROGRAM
Saturday April 29 at 6 pm:
Femenine (1974) by Julius Eastman, performed by ECHOI
Masculine by Sarah Hennies, performed by ECHOI
Masculine by Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork, Kumi James (BAE BAE), Jonathan Mandabach, and special guests

Sunday April 30 at 4 pm:
Femenine (1974) by Julius Eastman, performed by ECHOI
Masculine by Sarah Hennies, performed by ECHOI
Masculine by Davóne Tines, with Ken Ueno

Both programs are approximately 70 minutes and performances occur simultaneously.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Julius Eastman (1940–1990) was a composer, conductor, singer, pianist, and choreographer. A singular figure in New York City's downtown scene of the 1970s and 80s, he also performed at Lincoln Center with Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic, and recorded music by Arthur Russell, Morton Feldman, Peter Maxwell Davies, and Meredith Monk. “What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest," he said in 1976. "Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”

Despite his prominence in the artistic and musical community in New York, Eastman died in obscurity in Buffalo, NY. His death went unreported for eight months, until an obituary by Kyle Gann appeared in the Village Voice. Eastman left behind few scores and recordings, and his music lay dormant for decades until a three-CD set of his compositions titled Unjust Malaise was issued in 2005 by New World Records. In the years since, there has been a steady increase in attention paid to his music and life, punctuated by newly found recordings and manuscripts, worldwide performances and new arrangements of his surviving works, and rising interest from choreographers, scholars, educators, and journalists. "The brazen and brilliant music of Julius Eastman…commands attention: wild, grand, delirious, demonic, an uncontainable personality surging into sound," writes Alex Ross for The New Yorker.

Jacqueline Kiyomi Gork has been working with the intersection of sound, sculpture, and performance since 2002. She studied sound art, photography, and new genres at the San Francisco Art Institute and researched the history of communication technologies, acoustics, and computer music at Stanford University. Her work has been exhibited at major institutions including Made in L.A.: A Version, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Sculpture Center, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; V-A-C Foundation, Moscow, as well as 356 Mission Rd. and Human Resources, both in Los Angeles. Her work is currently on view at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. She is represented by François Ghebaly, Los Angeles and Empty Gallery, Hong Kong.

Davóne Tines, heralded as a “singer of immense power and fervor” and “[one] of the most powerful voices of our time” by the Los Angeles Times, is a pathbreaking artist whose work encompasses a diverse repertoire, ranging from early music to new commissions by leading composers, and explores the social issues of today. A creator, curator, and performer at the intersection of many histories, cultures, and aesthetics, he is engaged in work that blends opera, art song, contemporary classical, spirituals, gospel, and protest songs as a means to tell a deeply personal story of perseverance connecting to all of humanity. Tines is a winner of the 2020 Sphinx Medal of Excellence, recognizing extraordinary classical musicians of color. He also received the 2018 Emerging Artists Award from Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and is a graduate of Harvard University and The Juilliard School.

Sarah Hennies is a composer based in upstate New York whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including including queer & trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. She is primarily a composer of acoustic ensemble music, but is also active in improvisation, film, and performance art. She presents her work internationally as both a composer and percussionist with notable performances at MoMA PS1, New York; Monday Evening Concerts, Los Angeles; Le Guess Who, Utrecht; Festival Cable, Nantes; and the Edition Festival, Stockholm. Sarah is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College.

ECHOI is a flexible chamber ensemble that serves as the ensemble-in-residence of Monday Evening Concerts led by Jonathan Hepfer. They have staged performances around Los Angeles at venues such as Hauser & Wirth, Getty Museum, LAXART and Zipper Hall.