EVERY MATTER UNDER HEAVEN –
-A VOTE FOR LIFE AND PEACE-
”Every Matter Under Heaven” is a work of lush and colorful orchestration and invincible full-blooded pan-diatonicism adapting speeches from JFK, NASA, Truman, atomic scientists, military leaders, a.o.., to illustrate the ancient Hebrew book of Ecclesiastes’ unapologetic manner of explaining virtually "a time for everything". The chosen subject matter helps us recognize that a successful life is usually demonstrated best by one's ability to balance the commonplace.
The scope of Lee Johnson’s new work is truly staggering: he aims and succeeds at nothing less than a discussion of everything in the universe, from the cosmology of the Big Bang down to family matters in the Midwest, and all that lies between.
Several musical devices reappear throughout the work, providing a sense of unity that complements the remarkable diversity of other elements. Perhaps the most important of these unifiers, both orchestrally and dramatically, is the solo violin. Lee. Johnson writes extremely well for this instrument; its lyric statements suggest the presence of an individual who comments on and reacts to events in an uncommonly sensitive manner. Perhaps the solo violin could be considered the soul of the work itself. Just before the end, it gets a long, unaccompanied cadenza that recapitulates themes and organizational motives from every preceding movement. Entitled „Circle,“ this cadenza reminds us that the universe of tasks and events in each of our lives will recur time and again, its endless cycle providing reassurance and tragedy, hope and heartbreak, for every generation.
The clarity of its tonal idiom hypnotizes and charms the listener - hence its undeniable popular appeal. The music of the oratorio emits positive spiritual energy in the traditions of American art.
It’s very American to cherish one’s family and freedoms more than any grand national project. By recognizing that, Lee Johnson has created a most American oratorio. His music is also robustly American musically, resounding with rhythms and tune types we remember from Copland and Barber and Bernstein, not to mention John Adams. But none of it sounds derivative. Johnson possesses an insider’s knowledge of the music that sounds like home to us, and he uses it without apology. The result is a work of art that communicates immediately: „from the heart to the heart,“ as Beethoven liked to say.
A SYMPHONIC FILM
This “American Oratorio” is an extraordinary new addition to the genre of symphonic film. The massive score abounds in bold musical gestures that work in direct symbiotic relationship with the libretto's texts. However, just as easily and throughout the film, the libretto is also in direct opposition to its own surface level subject matter. This polarizing approach to text setting and film making is designed to show just how contradictory and paradoxical life in the middle half of the 20th century was when one explores the supposed American point of view.
Open source historical films, which would be virtually unknown outside the consumer crazed corporate boardrooms, the U.S. wartime propaganda machine, and the trusting socially engineered public school classroom of American life during the 1940's, 50's and 60's are the cultural forum of filmographic resources for EVERY MATTER UNDER HEAVEN.
(Used texts by Dr. Victoria Adamenko, Dr. Lyn Schenbeck and Lee Johnson)
Lee Johnson has recorded original symphonic works with The Russian National Orchestra, The London Symphony Orchestra and others. He has composed a broad range of works to include seven symphonies, numerous chamber works, musicals, operas, concerti, choral and vocal works, among others. His new seventh symphony "Infinitude" was commissioned by the Carter Center and was performed before a select group of Human Rights Defenders including the High Commissioner of Human Rights from the United Nations, Nobel Peace Prize Winner President Jimmy Carter, diginitaries and representatives from several nations from around the globe. Johnson's "Dead Symphony no. 6", also recorded by the Russian National Orchetra, has been officially endorsed by the Grateful Dead as the only large scale orchestral interpretation of their music to reach the classical concert stage.
Clay Powers has produced planetarium shows, music videos, public television specials, and is a prolific painter and computer artist. Power's collaboration with Johnson on the film "Every Matter Under Heaven" is another of the many co-produced films that they have done now for more than a decade. Their filmography includes: "Sandfloor Cathedral", "Lunch In America", "Bad Fish", "Trail of Tears" and many others. Powers also wrote the libretto to "Wordsmith" a one act comic opera, composed by Johnson, which toured the eastern United States as well as an upcoming collaboration entiltled "Roadman".
