Wild Up: Julius Eastman’s Femenine

In the summer of 2021, The New York Times announced that “Eastmania” had arrived. More than 30 years earlier, downtown New York mainstay and radically inventive composer Julius Eastman had died in Buffalo almost anonymously, following stints of homelessness. But the 2005 release of an epic box set launched a flurry of interest in Eastman’s work, from a collection of his essays and several other musical compendiums to the reissue of 1974’s Femenine, a pulsing piece of minimalist movement for piano, percussion, strings, and winds. For more than an hour, it flutters like a candle dancing in a gentle breeze, a dance made of light. What sealed Eastmania was a new recording of Femenine by Wild Up, extolled by The New York Times, Pitchfork, and NPR as a brilliant reintroduction to an artist whose work had blessedly endured.

Founded 15 years ago by artistic director and conductor Christopher Rountree, Wild Up is a transformative classical-plus ensemble, obliterating any preconceptions about what such groups are supposed to play, how they are meant to play it, and where they are meant to play it. In 2019, they began a relationship with New Amsterdam Records, first releasing work by Christopher Cerrone and then embarking on a groundbreaking multi-volume series interpreting Eastman’s works. As committed to new pieces as they are to finding the overlooked gems in the dustbin of history, Wild Up—a rotating pool of nearly 40 high-caliber players who also understand the spirit of the music at hand—is truly one of the United States’ indispensable groups.