FRANCESCA TER-BERG
  • VIDEOS
  • RELEASES
  • LIVE
  • BLOG
  • SOUNDTRACKS
  • RADIO SHOWS
  • FRAN & FLORA
  • Education
  • Food
  • Contact

Julius Eastman ' STAY ON IT'

2/3/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
A major highlight of my time at NEC was performing Stay On It by Julius Eastman.

Every Monday I got to work with Anthony Coleman in his weekly ensemble, Survivors Breakfast. You can imagine why the name...

One day Hannah Dunton, a killer bass player in the Jazz department asked if we could work on Stay On It by Julius Eastman. Me being such a folky weirdo I embarrassingly hadn't come across his music before. It is an incredible piece of music!!!!!!! Eastman was such a strong proponant for doing things his way, and being Black and Gay in the Avant Garde in the 70's in the US made him even more of an outsider. I wish we'd gotten to meet. 

You can find out more about him, his work and contribution to everything here and here.

Luckily Anthony had access to a score deduced from some of the favoured recordings of the piece, as it was never written down by Eastman in his short lifetime. 

So we worked on it, at first it didn't make sense, but then eventually - as is often the case with some of the best things - it feel into place, we found a pace with the piece, we found a way of listening to and playing with each other and finding our own voices within the parameters of the vague yet specific instructions for each section. It's a hefty length of a piece to perform and with Anthony's guidance we pulled it off. It was a super fun way to get to know fellow improvisers and experimenters at the school and I loved performing the piece. What an energy. Anthony really understood how to get inside the music, a rare skill which I appreciate so much.

Check out the two seminal performances below of the piece. I think you will like.

Thank you Julius for your amazing music and for being you and keeping it real in a time where it was even much tougher than now. 

Julius Eastman Creative Associates Tour (Part 1) 1974 from CCA: Glasgow on Vimeo.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About

    Press. Releases. Music.Food.Nature. Adventures on the Road. 

    Picture

    Archives

    November 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    December 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    October 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    February 2017
    October 2016
    May 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
© COPYRIGHT 2022. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  • VIDEOS
  • RELEASES
  • LIVE
  • BLOG
  • SOUNDTRACKS
  • RADIO SHOWS
  • FRAN & FLORA
  • Education
  • Food
  • Contact