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.
The following year, in 2022, Looking Glass Arts established a residency in Julius Eastman’s name, creating the Eastman Project, to support a black, queer musician and/or composer. Joshua Banbury and collaborator, Kevin Sherwin, wrote and recorded ‘The Deification Suite’ over the course of Summer 2022 at LGA.
In 2023 the Eastman Project artist was composer and bassist Kebra Seyoun-Charles with collaborators Aria Cheregosha and Lauren Spalding. They used their retreat at Looking Glass to develop a new work. They will return in 2024 to record the project in the barn.
The Eastman Residency is by invitation.