Joseph Martin Waters premieres rock opera in New York featuring SDSU students and alumni
SDSU talent shines in Waters’ psychedelic reimagining of Siddhartha at NYC premiere
San Diego State University professor Joseph Martin Waters brought his latest work, El Sidd & The Healers, to life in a May 31 premiere at The Cutting Room in Midtown Manhattan.
Of the 20-member ensemble of cast and musicians, 13 were current students or alumni of SDSU, where Waters — a composer, librettist, and producer — teaches composition in the School of Music and Dance.
El Sidd & The Healers reimagines Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha through the lens of 1969’s countercultural explosion. It follows a teenager’s journey from the Midwest to California in search of enlightenment, only to confront the seductive and sometimes harrowing underside of the era’s social revolution. The production blends rock, opera, and psychedelic storytelling.
The inspiration for the work, Waters said, draws deeply from his personal history.
“Lured by colorful descriptions of psychedelic visions, I was one of tens of thousands of teenagers in the late 1960s who ran away to California from a safe middle-class home, in a nationwide culture quest,” Waters said.
“Remembering that chapter in my life, I realized that the vision quest is universal, and I recalled the journey of Siddhartha. This story is my reimagining of that journey, set in a time of extreme cultural change, when experimentation and longing was at a zenith for that generation, outcomes varied, and sometimes harrowing with results unpredictable.”
The well-attended premiere was the culmination of more than a year of work by Waters, who began the libretto during a sabbatical year, completing musical sketches by late summer and orchestrating 27 individual pieces throughout the academic year.
“As composer, lyricist and librettist, as well as sound designer and producer, it took me every spare second of last year,” he said. “I had all of the music sketched out, and then spent the school year orchestrating the 27 musical pieces.”
Rehearsals intensified with cast members working remotely in the months prior. Waters’ San Diego living room doubled as a rehearsal space during the lead-up, and the full team relocated to Hunter College in New York City for final rehearsals.
“It was a trip. Next stop: Broadway,” Waters said following the premiere.
The production was directed by Desha Crownover with music direction by Richard Dunez Morrison. The ensemble included Geoffrey Burleson, piano; Charles Coleman (Das Krooner), baritone; Daniel Castro, guitar & mandolin; Karen Garcia, voice; Jack Gemmell, voice; Philip Gomez, voice; Sergio Bocanegra Gómez, keyboard; Matthew Javier, voice; Michael Jones, mandolin and Guitar; Peter Ko, cello; Andrew Michel, electric bass; David Ramirez, flute; Ed Spillane, saxophone; David Sullivan, drums; Joseph Martin Waters, composer; Julia Waters, voice.
