LCMF: In search of Julius Eastman

Second Home Holland Park is hosting the return of the 2016 London Contemporary Music Festival, in partnership with Three Thirty Three, to present the world’s first overview of the critically acclaimed post-minimalist composer Julius Eastman.

With its organic, open forms and vivid, pop aesthetic, Eastman’s music constitutes a vital chapter in the emergence of post-minimalism. The American composer and performer transgressed the overlapping circles of 1970s and 1980s New York avant-garde, with his foregrounding of the black and queer experience challenging the institutions and aesthetics of modern composition.

For this three-day series of live performances, Apartment House and Elaine Mitchener will perform rarely heard Eastman works, from the recently unearthed long-form masterpiece Femenine to the late, enigmatic Buddha.

Music by a range of Eastman’s contemporaries, from John Cage to Arthur Russell, will illuminate the myriad contexts and collaborations of his career.

Artists of today will feature: such as dancer-choreographers Jamila Johnson-Small & Alexandrina Hemsley, whose work probes the politics of race and gender.

These live performances, held at our under-construction Second Home Holland Park space (a former photographer's studio, where legendary director Antonioni staged Blow Up), will be complemented by a panel discussion on Eastman’s life and legacy.