Correction: I Was Looking at the Ceiling and then I Saw the Sky was composed by John Adams, not John Luther Adams. Classicalite regrets the error.
"I was looking at the ceiling and then I saw the sky" was a statement made by a survivor of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. It is also the title of a song-play by contemporary composer John Adams and poet June Jordan, set in the aftermath of the devastating quake that hit Los Angeles. The Long Beach Opera will present Ceiling/Sky at the Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood on August 23 at 8:00 p.m.
LBO artistic director Andreas Mitisek will direct this concert performance, which marks the Southern California premiere of this earthquake romance.
Ceiling/Sky is an opera-musical theater hybrid that mixes pop, jazz, gospel, blues and funk, all underpinned by Adams' minimalist musical voice. Rich with the sounds and rhythms of American urban life, this "song play" uses the Northridge quake as a starting point to explore issues of race, gender and immigration among young Angelenos.
Adams himself compares the spirit of the work, performed by musical theater singers and accompanied by three keyboards and a rock band formation, to Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera.
"Music is an art form about feeling," Adams said in an interview. "I think we tend to forget that, particularly in the era of modernism where music has become very much a kind of intellectual activity."
The LBO cast at the Ford will include Cedric Berry, Bernard Holcomb, Zeffin Quinn Hollis, Andrew Nguyen, Lindsay Patterson, Zipporah Peddle and Holly Sedillos.
Ceiling/Sky premiered in Berkeley, Calif. in 1995, then went on to tour extensively throughout the world. It was seen in Montreal, New York, Helsinki, Paris, Hamburg and Edinburgh--but never in Los Angeles where the action is set.
"It's surprising that Ceiling/Sky has never been done in L.A.," says Mitisek. "We're righting a wrong with this performance. I love the idea of exploring something different--the LBO motto has always been 'expect the unexpected.' For Adams to have liberated himself, to have been able to dive into all these different genres, is impressive. June Jordan was an amazing poet. This piece speaks to the time and takes us back."
Born in Harlem, New York, June Jordan (1936-2002) was a poet, activist, journalist, essayist and teacher. She was an influential voice who lived and wrote on the frontlines of American poetry, international political vision and human moral witness.
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