Wild Up’s latest entry in their decade-long, multiple-time GRAMMY-nominated compendium on the late American composer and polymath Julius Eastman is Gay Guerrilla, a provocative and epochal work that sanctifies queerness and envisions a genuine revolution of gay liberation.
As Eastman shared in remarks preceding Gay Guerrilla’s 1980 premiere: “If there is a cause — and if it is a great cause — those who belong to that cause will sacrifice their blood, because, without blood, there is no cause. So, therefore, that is the reason that I use gay guerrilla, in hopes that I might be one, if called upon to be one.”
On this release, Wild Up draws out the compositional characteristics and urgent themes that mark Eastman as a singular figure in American Experimentalism: queered allusions to Lutheran hymnals, almost unbearably tense passages of frenzied repetition, and explosions of melodic ecstasy. It’s a testament to the ensemble’s carefully-honed ability to perform Eastman’s idiosyncratic scores in a spirit befitting its creator.
With this imposing rendition, Wild Up reaffirms the point made by the musicologist and composer Luciano Chessa: “If all of Eastman’s music but this one were to disappear, Gay Guerrilla would still be enough to guarantee him a firm place in the history of twentieth-century music.”
Andrew Tholl, violin
Mona Tian, violin
Darian Donovan Thomas, violin
Andrew McIntosh, viola
Carson Rick, viola
Derek Stein, cello
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Marlon Martinez, bass
Brian Cannady, percussion
Jodie Landau, percussion
richard valitutto, piano
Adam Tendler, piano
Rachel Beetz, flute, alto flute
Claire Brazeau, oboe, english horn
Brian Walsh, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, bari saxophone
Shelley Washington, alto saxophone, bari saxophone
Marta Tiesenga, tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone
Archie Carey, bassoon
Allen Fogle, french horn
Ryan Darke, trumpet
Christopher Rountree, conductor / artistic director
Produced, recorded and mixed by Lewis Pesacov with additional production by Christopher Rountree
Engineered by Lewis Pesacov and Clint Welander
Additional mixing on Prelude to the Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc by Clint Welander
Recorded at Fox Studio and Knobworld
Mixed at Ahata Sound
Mastered by Reuben Cohen at Lurssen Mastering, Los Angeles, CA
Album Designer: Andrea Hyde
Website Designer: Traci Larson
Cover Photo: Christine Rusiniak
Executive Producer: Elizabeth Cline
Production Director: Brian Sea