Keywords
micro-spatial historiography
Julius Eastman
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act
musical labor
How to Cite
Abstract
The New York CETA Orchestra was legislated into existence in 1978 at a time of economic peril both for New York City as well as the nation. Over its brief life, the CETA Orchestra played in all five boroughs and made a strong case for music as a public good. Their mobility across the Five Boroughs—from the Staten Island Ferry to the Paul Robeson Theater to the Port Authority Bus Terminal—displayed a form of musicianship that decoupled associations of place and aesthetics. Following the CETA Orchestra from 1978–1979 reveals shortcomings in geographical models of musical history that divided the city into distinct aesthetic zones of “uptown,” “midtown,” and “downtown.” As a corrective to a Manhattan-centric model, I offer a micro-spatial account of New York City musical life detailing Julius Eastman and his involvement with the CETA Orchestra. Eastman served as resident composer, vocalist, and conductor with the group. Through his connections to Lukas Foss and the Brooklyn Philharmonia, Eastman brought the CETA Orchestra into the service of the Philharmonia’s Community Concerts. These focused on the music of Black composers performed in majority Black neighborhoods of Brooklyn, Queens, and Harlem. Eastman is usually grouped among the “downtown” experimentalists, yet Eastman’s work with the CETA Orchestra and that orchestra’s work with the Community Concerts testifies to the complexity of musical geography in New York City in the 1970s and the dynamics of race and labor shaping it.
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