Kukuruz started 2014 their involvement with Julius Eastman and his musical works. In 2017, their performance at documenta 14 in the Megaro Mousikis concert hall in Athens earned a standing ovation. They performed works by Julius Eastman: 'Evil Nigger', 'Gay Guerrilla', 'Buddha' and 'Fugue No. 7'. The recording of these compositions followed in November 2017 on four Steinway D pianos in the main hall of the historic Radiostudio Zürich. Composer, trombonist and scholar George E. Lewis, who knew Eastman personally and played with him, writes in the liner notes: „This brilliant recording by the Kukuruz Quartet constitutes an important new contribution to the growing corpus of performances of music by the composer, pianist, and singer Julius Eastman (1940-1990), who came to prominence in the experimental music scene of the 1970s and 1980s ... On this recording, the Kukuruz Quartet renders Eastman’s spirit of adventure audible and sensuous, exemplifying a new, creolized formation of contemporary classical music that is able to embrace a multicultural, multi-ethnic usable past and thinkable future that can affirm our common humanity in the pursuit of new music.“
credits
released June 15, 2018
Philip Bartels: Piano
Duri Collenberg: Piano
Simone Keller: Piano
Lukas Rickli: Piano
supported by 23 fans who also own “Julius Eastman Piano Interpretations”
“With Julius, he was based in repetition, but here was a spirit of openness and improvisation. His scores, if they were written out that way, were often like jazz scores. He loved multiplying instruments – four pianos, ten cellos – so there was a real feeling of the presence of the instrument, not just using an instrument in some kind of equation, as a means to an end.” ~ Mary Jane Leach
Enough said. pt
Minimal and emotionally evocative compositions for solo piano in the Ryuichi Sakamoto vein from Cincinnati's Tristan Eckerson. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 18, 2020
The indigenous artist beautifully reinterprets the centuries-old songs of his people, helping to preserve an endangered language. Bandcamp Album of the Day Apr 16, 2019
supported by 19 fans who also own “Julius Eastman Piano Interpretations”
Verisimilitude was at the top of my "Top Ten Records of 2017".
https://www.poisonpie.com/publishing/reviews/text/musicreview_2017.html
Can't wait for the vinyl version to arrive. David Keffer