Julius Eastman

Julius Eastman (1940–1990) was an American composer, vocalist, and pianist whose work combined minimalism with a direct, politically charged expression of Black and gay identity. His compositions — Evil Nigger, Gay Guerrilla, Crazy Nigger — are among the most powerfully titled and performed in American minimalism. He performed with the S.E.M. Ensemble and collaborated with Meredith Monk. He died in poverty and relative obscurity. Posthumous reconstruction of his work — much of it without surviving scores — has established him as one of the most important and undervalued American composers of the twentieth century.