Femenine
Julius EastmanPiece Duration: 1:10:45
About this Piece
Score: https://issuu.com/scoresondemand/docs/femenine_57875
-Eastman uses time markers to tell the players when to move to the next section of the music. For example, the vibraphone plays its famous ostinato all on its own, for the first three minutes of music!
"In the summer of 1975, composer Julius Eastman (1940–1990) presented two works at a concert held at the Albright Knox Museum of Art in Buffalo, New York. One ensemble performed Femenine (composer's spelling)—a composition that has been widely rediscovered in recent years as an under-recognized modern masterpiece—inside a gallery, while another ensemble performed a piece titled Masculine outside. This simultaneous presentation placed the audience in a space caught between Masculine and Femenine as they moved between both performances.
Today, no record or score exists of Eastman's Masculine. To fill the void left by this lost piece of music, three unique artists present new works that expound on both the idea of masculinity and the complex and radiant legacy of Julius Eastman—a figure who navigated radically interdisciplinary artistic communities within classical, avant-garde, popular, and underground music." - Getty
Notable Passages
Description: [4 Minute Excerpt] Listen for how each player interprets the ostinato a bit differently. Some players add and take away notes, some hold onto notes longer than others, and some repeat sections of it before continuing on!
Keywords: Heterophony , Ostinato - Composition Technique , Texture - Misc.
Description: [4 Minute and 10 Second Excerpt] Listen to how the instrumentalists respond with rapid fire chords, whenever the piano plays Bb and C in the low range of the piano! (Found on page 7 of the score, with Eastman’s lead sheet notation)