Oklahoma expats Adam & Kizzie return to headline OKC's Opening Night New Year's Eve event

Brandy McDonnell, Oklahoman

December 22, 2021 at 2:08 AM·7 min read

For better or worse, Adam and Kizzie Ledbetter's move to the West Coast hasn't gone as they envisioned.

"When we moved to Los Angeles, we found out that Kizzie was pregnant five days later," Adam said. "So, we hadn't settled in, we hadn't unpacked or anything when we figured out, 'Oh, OK, so everything we thought we were going to do is not going to happen.'"

The husband-and-wife musical duo and Oklahoma natives welcomed their daughter, Juno, on March 17, 2020.

"It was two days before California shut down because of the pandemic," Kizzie said. "With her, it's impossible to have a bad day. I tell anyone who'll listen I have not had a bad day since she was born. ... It's been hard and it's felt impossible at times, but it hasn't been bad."

"We've had some hard days, but no bad days," Adam added.

Still, the duo is hopeful for better days ahead, as Adam & Kizzie will ring in 2022 by returning to their home state and headlining Opening Night, downtown Oklahoma City's long-running New Year's Eve celebration.

Husband-and-wife music duo Adam & Kizzie - Adam and Kizzie Ledbetter - are Oklahoma natives now based in Los Angeles. They are headlining the Opening Night 2022 New Year's Eve celebration Dec. 31 at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.

"The value in New Year's is that it's a collective perspective that we always have the ability to start fresh, to look forward to a new tomorrow. That's what New Year's is about. When you really dissect it, from Dec. 31 to Jan. 1, it's just a difference between two days," Kizzie told The Oklahoman.

"But what the holiday does give us — the reason it is a gift — is it does give us a greater sense of hope: to do better, to reach better and to achieve better. ... And our whole thing is spreading joy and love and light."

April Fool, a member of Bricktown Clowns, juggles for two children during the Opening Night festivities in downtown Oklahoma City on New Year's Eve 2016.

Opening Night returns to Bricktown Ballpark

After going virtual in 2021, Opening Night will swing back to an in-person event at 7 p.m. Dec. 31 at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark. The festivities will include an array of local musical acts, children's activities, a mural contest and a countdown to midnight with the traditional rising of the big lighted ball and a dazzling finale fireworks display.

"Words can't express how excited we are to have Opening Night back ... in downtown Oklahoma City — and especially, again, in Bricktown," said Peter Dolese, executive director of Arts Council Oklahoma City, which produces the event. "This will be the first time that we've actually been able to exercise our Bricktown legs in many, many years."

Last year's streaming event marked the first time the Bricktown Ballpark hosted Opening Night.

"There were several acts that we actually had in the park, but no one was witnessing it (in person). We were shooting them and then broadcasting it over our YouTube and Facebook pages," Dolese said. "We had a very robust audience in Facebook and YouTube land — several thousand people ended up watching the live-stream — but it's just not the same."

Since the Bricktown Ballpark also is the holiday home of the popular WinterFest and Snow Tubing, Opening Night attendees for the first time will be able to zip down the slopes covered in manmade snow as part of the New Year's Eve event.

Oklahoma singer-songwriter Carter Sampson will perform Dec. 31 at the Opening Night 2022 New Year's Eve event at the Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.

Murals, clowns and musicians to be featured

In the run-up to the celebration, the athletically inclined can participate in Opening Night’s annual kickoff event, the Finale 5K, at 3 p.m. Dec. 31, with a new course that will wind through Bricktown.

Starting at 7 p.m., the indoor-outdoor festivities will include food offerings from the ballpark's concession areas and from food trucks parked out on Mickey Mantle Drive.

For the second year, Opening Night will include an outdoor display of murals through FRESH PAINT: OKC NYE, a collaborative project to promote aspiring young artists in the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) community. Presented by the OKC Thunder, FRESH PAINT: OKC NYE will showcase murals by four local artists ranging in age from 18 to 25 — Destiny Elaine Davis, NyLainah Brewer, Denae Smith and Iliana Barrientos — who have been mentored by professional muralists Ebony Iman Dallas and Dylan Bradway.

The public can vote on their favorite FRESH PAINT mural at https://www.artscouncilokc.com from Dec. 28 through midnight Dec. 31.

"All four of the women that are involved have aspirations to do this professionally to some degree, so introducing them to Ebony and Dylan really creates the next step for them to be able to be involved in this community moving forward," said Opening Night Director Alyssa Flesher. "It was really exciting to watch their progress and see what they created."

In the ballpark, local entertainers will perform sets at 7, 8, 9 and 10 p.m. in different areas: Red Dirt singer-songwriter Carter Sampson will play in the Coop Beer Garden, hip-hop artist Original Flow will keep the music flowing on the Budweiser Deck, and the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma (ACM@UCO) will showcase a different band every hour in the picnic area.

"We're just trying to create different little activation spaces, with the classical music from Opera on Tap in the Legends Lounge ... and then having Rod Porter do some R&B and soul music with kind of a lounge feel on the second floor of the ballpark," Flesher said. "Of course, we'll have the Bricktown Clowns for the kids area ... and they'll be in the batting cages, which I think will be fun."

Local favorites return to OKC for NYE

Adam & Kizzie will bring their singular sound at 9, 10 and 11 p.m. on the Finale Stage, which will be situated on the second base line of the field. They will play high-energy sets showcasing their genre-defying sound "EEDO" — the moniker is a riff on the word "frEEDOm" — leading up to the countdown to midnight.

The talented duo — Adam's is a pianist, rapper and songwriter rooted in classical piano, jazz and hip hop, while Kizzie is a powerhouse singer, songwriter and actor with a background in musical theater and gospel — was a mainstay on the OKC entertainment scene until they moved to L.A. in June 2019.

"My plan was to really just dive headfirst into musical directorship of Adam & Kizzie: book shows, play venues, a lot of the things we saw our friends doing that they're still going," Adam said. "It's been an adventure, honestly, and in a lot of ways, it's been cathartic."

"Nothing went according to plan, but we're blessed," Kizzie said.

When the couple found out they were expecting their first child, Adam said that meant finding gigs and working to support their growing family.

"But when the pandemic hit, it allowed me to kind of get off that train and reconnect and let us figure out a direction as a family now of three," he said.

During the COVID-19 shutdowns, he started an online video series called "Barz and Boardz."

"It was just me playing different keyboards ... and then I would rap verses about all sorts of stuff. A lot of it had to do with the protests that were happening and racism," he said. "I did a lot of songs about fatherhood: I have one about breastfeeding, and I have one about changing diapers and why it was so important for me to change Juno's diapers. Just whatever was going on at the time. From that experience, it kind of put me in a different direction than what I had been doing, and I realized that for me, it's it's become really important to have an outlet to do my thing as a rapper."

Along with playing shows, Adam now works as a music teacher at a private school, while Kizzie is a stay-at-home mom who creates social media content and edits videos.

"Occasionally, we get hired for the same gig, but a lot of times ... we're able to save some money on babysitting if we're separate, if one of us has an earlier or later gig," Adam said.

For their hometown New Year's Eve show, they will be performing together again — and they anticipated plenty of their friends and family will be eager to babysit.

"Kizzie's gonna sing some high notes, I know that much," Adam said. "It's always super special to come back home — and I think Oklahoma's always gonna be home for real."