a lecture-recital by pianist richi valitutto, D.M.A. (Cornell University)
Julius Eastman (1940–1990) grew up in Ithaca, where he began his music studies as a singer and pianist. He graduated from the Curtis Institute with a composition degree, studied and worked as a pianist-composer-singer virtuoso Creative Associate fellow at SUNY-Buffalo's Center of the Creative and Performing Arts (CCPA), and later pursued a wide-ranging career based in New York City, moving between the worlds of academic (Uptown) modernism and the eclectic Downtown experimental scene, including minimalism, disco, and free jazz. His last known solo piano composition, Piano 2 (1986), was composed during his near-decade of living homeless, and it is an unusual addition to his sporadic compositional oeuvre. A virtuosic modernist "sonata" in three movements, the idiosyncratic manuscript score leaves the performer with more questions than answers as to its realization, other than the through-composed pitches and rhythms.Building upon the ever-growing body of Eastman scholarship, I am interested in thinking through, hearing, and understanding Piano 2 alongside the music of other notable American modernist pianist-composers with whom Eastman either worked closely or whose music he prominently performed, often both. By discussing and performing this music, especially the specific pieces Eastman is known to have performed publicly, I hope to illuminate another facet of the still-developing "Eastmanian performance practice," situating his work as Modernist alongside the more common associations of his work with Minimalism: two of many categorical labels that could be applied to the diverse, fecund landscape of his multivalent creative activities and performative registers.
Robert Palmer (1915–2010): Epigram No. 1 (1957) Ann Silsbee (1930–2003): Bagatelle (1963) Morton Feldman (1926–1987): Vertical Thoughts 4 (1963) Frederic Rzewski (1938–2021): Dreadful Memories (1978) Béla Bartók (1881–1945): Chromatic Invention (1926–1939) Henry Cowell (1897–1965): Fabric (1920) Federico Mompou (1893–1987): Cants mágics (1917–1919) Julius Eastman (1940–1990): Piano 2 (1986)
Described by The New Yorker as "a keyboard superstar" with "a crystalline lyricism very much their own," and by the Los Angeles Times as "spellbinding," "vigorously virtuosic," and "all around go-to new music specialist," richard valitutto (richi) is a GRAMMY-nominated piano soloist, chamber musician, vocal accompanist, composer/arranger, and music educator. Equally at home in the concert hall, on the theatrical stage, and in the recording studio, they perform repertoires spanning 300 years — from Classical to Cabaret, from New Complexity to Minimalism — across written and improvised traditions. They have collaborated with the Martha Graham Dance Company, NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, PBS Great Performances, the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC*), and the American Academies in Rome and Berlin, among others, appearing at Lincoln Center, the Barbican London, Disney Concert Hall, and Muziekgebouw Amsterdam.
Since 2010, valitutto has been a founding member of Wild Up — the Los Angeles-based ensemble named to the New York Times' "Best Classical Music of 2015" — serving as its "pianist and resident Eastman scholar" (Vogue). They have contributed piano artistry, original archival research, and incisive writing to Wild Up's ongoing Julius Eastman Anthology on New Amsterdam Records, a series that earned two GRAMMY nominations for Best Classical Compendium (Volumes 2 and 3). Volume 4 (2024) features their deeply personal and virtuosic account of Piano 2, Eastman's only surviving piano solo composition. They also served as editorial advisor and foreword author for G. Schirmer's new performance edition of Eastman’s ensemble work Femenine.
Their debut solo album, nocturnes & lullabies (New Focus Recordings, 2020), was named to Bandcamp's Best of Contemporary Classical list. With a dissertation on Eastman's activities as a performer-composer in New York's Downtown scene—they hold degrees from Cornell University (DMA), the California Institute of the Arts (MFA), and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (BM, summa cum laude).