Wild Up

🌟Announced today: the fifth volume of our Julius Eastman Anthology, “Julius Eastman Vol. 5: Gay Guerrilla” arriving June 19 on New Amsterdam Records (@newamrecords ). Today we release the single “Melt To and Back Again”, something building from quietly anxious woodwinds and pulsing piano into a bleating, tumultuous fit—before resolving into an almost baroque fanfare. Listen now on all streaming platforms, and pre-order the album at the 🔗 in bio. 🎶 Gay Guerrilla is one of Julius Eastman’s most incendiary works: an ecstatic, unrelenting vision of queer liberation that still feels dangerously alive. Across the album: echoes of Lutheran hymnals, stretched to the breaking point. Repetition that builds into something almost unbearable. Then, suddenly, radiance! Before the work’s 1980 premiere, Eastman said: “If there is a cause—and if it is a great cause—those who belong to that cause will sacrifice their blood, because, without blood, there is no cause. So, therefore, that is the reason that I use gay guerrilla, in hopes that I might be one, if called upon to be one.” Andrew Tholl, violin 
Mona Tian, violin
Darian Donovan Thomas, violin  Andrew McIntosh, viola  Carson Rick, viola  Derek Stein, cello 
Seth Parker Woods, cello Marlon Martinez, bass  Brian Cannady, percussion 
Jodie Landau, percussion
richard valitutto, piano  Adam Tendler, piano  Rachel Beetz, flute, alto flute  Claire Brazeau, oboe, english horn  Brian Walsh, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, bari saxophone  Shelley Washington, alto saxophone, bari saxophone  Marta Tiesenga, soprano, tenor, bari saxophone  Archie Carey, bassoon 
Allen Fogle, french horn  Ryan Darke, trumpet  Christopher Rountree, conductor/artistic director  Produced, recorded & mixed by Lewis Pesacov with additional production by Christopher Rountree Engineered by Lewis Pesacov & Clint Welander  Recorded at Fox Studio & Knobworld  Mixed at Ahata Sound  Mastered by Reuben Cohen at Lurssen Mastering Executive Producer: Elizabeth Cline  Production Director: Brian Sea  #WildUp #JuliusEastman #GayGuerrilla

We can’t keep it in any longer. Endless Season 2025–26 has arrived! Join us for a year of mysticism, experimentation, and collective imagination rooted in LA (and sometimes beyond!) Link in bio for tix and more info.

⛪🎶 For one night, REDCAT becomes a chapel of sound. Join Wild Up and @calartsredcat on June 6 for The Interior Castle, an evening spanning centuries of artistic and spiritual inquiry inspired by visionary women, most of them cloistered. The program brings together music by medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen, Baroque Italian nun Isabella Leonarda, and Ethiopian composer-pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, alongside world premieres by LA-based composers @lisel.jpeg and @tiesenga . Built as a kind of musical return-and-refrain, the evening circles back to four luminous piano works by Emahoy, performed by guest artist Vicki Ray, plus Eliza Bagg’s True City, a response to Hildegard’s O presul vere civitas, and Wild Up member M.A. Tiesenga’s The Interior Castle, a foray into St. Teresa of Ávila’s mystical architecture of the soul. 
📅 Saturday, June 6 | 8pm
📍 REDCAT
 Tickets at the link in bio!

We are so grateful to everyone who joined us this past Saturday at The Nimoy for The Center is Between Us! A huge thank you to our singular and spellbinding collaborators and musicians: 
@absolute_focus @chrisvotek 
@urbanmona @katerbridge #LukeSantonastaso
@mmartassofia @dereksteincello @marloniusmusic @patrickshiroishi @archiecarey4 @mattie_barbier @orionrountree @briansea.xyz 
 And of course, endless gratitude to our lovely friends at @cap_ucla . 

The Center is Between Us closes out ‘Wild Up at The Nimoy’, a concert series exploring the multiplicities of sound, texture, and improvisation. See you again next season! — Images courtesy of UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance. Photos by Jason Williams.

I’m still on a cloud from the joy of creating , sharing , and performing new music with @wildup and @absolute_focus 🍀Thank you @orionrountree for inviting us to collaborate with you and the most colorful brilliant badass new music cohort in the world. What a team @marloniusmusic @urbanmona @dereksteincello @katerbridge Luke Santonasta @mmartassofia 🎻massive shoutout to @neelamjitmusic for helping us arrange and prepare the music ! thanks to everyone who came to the Nimoy, thanks to all the folks behind the scenes @cap_ucla @briansea.xyz @elizcline @duncwood07 @thebokehmonster 🎥 . Hurrah for the surreal journey into the world of Robert Ashley @patrickshiroishi @archiecarey4 @mattie_barbier 🍀 I feel lucky to be a part of multiple insanely wonderful music communities in LA and this concert truly brought them together under one roof🛖❤️🙏

👀 A sneak peek from weekend rehearsals for The Center is Between Us featuring @chrisvotek & @absolute_focus . Join us this Saturday, May 9 at The Nimoy for the world premiere of Echoes of the Unstruck Sound. Plus, selections from Robert Ashley’s singular, iconic TV opera Perfect Lives. Tickets at the link in bio! @cap_ucla

🎬🎶Part two of our Journey Into Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerrilla. We begin at the beginning. From the outset, Eastman’s idea of “organic music” takes shape: music grows from a simple structure through repetition and accumulation unfolding gradually, layer by layer. The sound you’re hearing is @wildup ’s own recording, from the album Gay Guerrilla arriving June 19. This clip features pianists richard valitutto and Adam Tendler and oboist Claire Brazeau. @adamtendler @pianotutto @oboejones Stay tuned for part three! #WildUp #GayGuerrilla #JuliusEastman

Join me on a Journey Into Julius Eastman’s Gay Guerrilla. In this new series, we move through the intricacies of this iconic work, page by page, into the score and out the other side. The first chapter begins now. Julius Eastman Vol. 5: Gay Guerrilla, the fifth album in @wildup ’s Julius Eastman anthology, arrives June 19. #wildup #gayguerrilla #juliuseastman

Were you lucky enough to experience the @arthurrussellmusic disco party at the Greyhound on that unforgettable Friday night of Big Ears? Photo: @tarynferrophoto featuring @wildup

Saturday, June 6, join Wild Up and REDCAT for an evening of ecstatic and contemplative music inspired by visionary women❤️‍🔥. ⁠ ⁠ THE INTERIOR CASTLE features four works by Ethiopian pianist and nun Emahoy Tsegue Maryam Guebrou, two reimaginings of the chants of medieval abbess Hildegard von Bingen and new music by LA-based vocalist and composer Eliza Bagg, and a world premiere by Wild Up member M.A. Tiesenga inspired by St. Teresa of Ávila. ⁠ ⁠ Purchase tickets at the link in our bio. ⁠ ⁠ Image courtesy of Wild Up⁠

Slip outside ordinary time.🎶🌀 Saturday, May 9, join Wild Up and friends @absolute_focus & @chrisvotek for The Center Is Between Us at The Nimoy. A surreal Midwestern myth unfolds through hypnotic text, circling memory, and awakening in Wild Up’s performance of Robert ASHLEY: Perfect Lives, Episodes 1 and 7 (The Park and The Backyard). Then: an improvised Hindustani raga set weaves ancient rhythmic cycles into the present moment. 📆 Saturday, May 9 | 8pm 📍The Nimoy 🔗 Tickets at the link in our bio See you there!

💭 Still thinking about @bigearsfestival