THE EASTMAN PROJECT
“What I am trying to achieve is to be what I am to the fullest... Black to the fullest, a musician to the fullest, a homosexual to the fullest.”
- Julius Eastman, in a 1976 interview
ABOUT
In our inaugural 2021 season, Looking Glass Arts partnered with the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA to film Julius Eastman’s “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc” (1980) for 10 cellos (under the Musical Direction of Seth Parker Woods) and the Prelude for Solo Baritone (performed by Davóne Tines) in the hundred-year-old dairy barn adapted for use as a rustic recording space. In 2022, Looking Glass Arts anchored the summer season with a project specifically documenting the work of a black, queer musician or composer. Joshua Banbury and collaborator, Kevin Sherwin, wrote and recorded ‘The Deification Suite’ over the course of Summer 2022 at LGA. For the third iteration of the Eastman Project, LGA commits to inviting a Black, Queer musician/composers to apply to utilize Looking Glass as an incubation space for a new project. This will be a two-pronged residency that occurs over the course of the Summer 2023 and 2024 seasons. For the Summer 2023 session, the artist will spend a week at Looking Glass Arts writing, rehearsing, and dreaming solo or with up to two collaborators. For the Summer 2024 session, the artist will be return to LGA to record the project in the barn. The Eastman artist-in-residence will be announced in June, check back for updates!
