Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner

A companion of John Cage and Morton Feldman in 1960s New York, Julius Eastman mixed canny minimalist innovation with head-on political provocation, and should really be regarded as one of the greats of contemporary composition. Instead he died in poverty, having spent much of his last years homeless and destitute, and with most of his scores lost. 

The Julius Eastman Memorial Dinner is built around Clayton’s new arrangements of two of Eastman’s most important piano works – Evil Nigger and Gay Guerrilla. As Clayton live processes the pianos of David Friend and Emily Manzo, he also intersperses musical vignettes – performed by neo-Sufi vocalist Arooj Aftab – to lend context and nuance to the composer's saga, which was cut short in 1990 at the age of 49.