Wild Up Plays Julius Eastman At Segerstrom Center For The Arts in Costa Mesa, June 17
Buy Tickets: https://www.scfta.org/events/2021/wild-up
Wild Up To Release Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine Out June 18 On New Amsterdam, Listen To A Movement HERE
Part Of An Ongoing Anthology Series Honoring The “Brazen & Brilliant” (The New Yorker) Musical Trailblazer
On June 17, 2021, Wild Up — the GRAMMY-nominated Los Angeles-based musical collective championed for their “boisterously theatrical sensibility” (NY Times) — will bring their frenzied, ecstatic take on Julius Eastman’s “Femenine” to Segerstrom Center For The Arts for a socially distanced live outdoor performance. The performance precedes the June 18 release of their new album Julius Eastman Vol. 1: Femenine (New Amsterdam Records), the opening entry in Wild Up’s multi-volume anthology celebrating Eastman.
Tickets are on sale here: https://www.scfta.org/events/2021/wild-up
Julius Eastman was a visionary of modern music who was young, gay, and Black at a time when it was even more difficult to be young, gay, and Black. He swerved through academia, discos, Europe, Carnegie Hall, and the downtown experimental music scene. And in 1990, at age 49, Eastman died in Buffalo, New York, his work largely dismissed and underappreciated. But a recent revival of interest has led to the canonization of his “brazen and brilliant” (The New Yorker) compositions, including “Femenine,” a piece that Pitchfork says “heralds the powerful voice of the black, queer artist.”
Listen to an excerpt from Wild Up’s recording of “Femenine” HERE
Eastman sometimes gifted copies of his musical scores. Now, over three decades since his death, his work is being regifted by those whose lives he touched. For Wild Up, to play Eastman’s music is to feel they are in, of, and visiting his world at the same time. Though the band worked with scrupulous care to realize this project, part of the joy of performing it is accepting that Julius Eastman's precise intentions for this elusive score will always remain something of a mystery—just a little out of reach. In performing his work, Wild Up feels a little more alive, a little more connected, a little more free, and by embarking on this anthology, they endeavor to carry this freedom forward.
About Wild Up:
Wild Up is a modern music collective—a group of Los Angeles-based musicians committed to creating visceral, thought-provoking happenings. They tell stories and make projects that live somewhere between new music and theater and performance art and pop. The group believes that music is a catalyst for shared experiences, and that the concert venue is a place for challenging, exciting, and igniting the community around us. Earlier this year, Wild Up produced its second annual Darkness Sounding festival, a series of musical happenings set against the darkest days of the year. Spanning a month, with over thirty distinct performances around Los Angeles (and virtually from beyond), the New York Times calledDarkness Sounding “sincere, outdoorsy [and] trippy.”
About Segerstrom Center For The Arts:
Segerstrom Center for the Arts is an acclaimed arts institution as well as a beautiful multi-disciplinary cultural campus. It is committed to supporting artistic excellence, offering unsurpassed experiences and to engaging the entire community in new and exciting ways through the unique power of live performance as well as a diverse array of inspiring arts-based education and community engagement programs.
Previously called the Orange County Performing Arts Center, Segerstrom Center is Orange County’s largest non-profit arts organization. In addition to its six performance venues, Segerstrom Center is also home to the American Ballet Theatre William J. Gillespie School and Studio D: Arts School for All (previously named School of Dance and Music for Children with Disabilities).
The Center presents a broad range of programming for audiences of all ages, featuring international ballet and dance companies, national tours of top Broadway shows, jazz and cabaret, contemporary artists, classical music performed by renowned chamber orchestras and ensembles, family-friendly programming, and free performances on its plaza, such as outdoor movie screenings, concerts, community and cultural festivals.
Segerstrom Center is a leader among the nation’s performing arts centers for providing education programs designed to inspire young people through the arts. The Center’s programs reach hundreds of thousands of students each year in five Southern California counties. The CDI supports flagship artistic programming and a wide range of projects that celebrate innovation, nurture creativity, and engage audiences of the future. The Center Without Boundaries develops partnerships with non-cultural organizations to help them in their own efforts to respond to the ever-changing needs of the community.
Segerstrom Center for the Arts is also proud to serve as the artistic home to three of the region’s major performing arts organizations: Pacific Symphony, Philharmonic Society of Orange County and Pacific Chorale. Each contributes greatly to the artistic life of the region with annual seasons performed at the Center.
In addition to Segerstrom Center for the Arts as a presenting and producing institution, it also identifies the beautiful 14-acre campus that embraces the Center’s own facilities as well as two independently acclaimed organizations: Tony Award®-winning South Coast Repertory and the Orange County Museum of Art.
Follow Wild Up:
Website: https://www.wildup.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WildUp/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/wildup?lang=en
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildup/?hl=en