Amna: Last year, raven Chacon
became the first native American
composer to win the pulitzer
prize for music, bringing new
attention to a composer known
for his experimental sounds and
explorations of place and
history.
Jeffrey brown has this story,
the second of our pieces on
contemporary native art, for our
arts and culture series, canvas.
The setting, a church in
Milwaukee at Thanksgiving.
A large organ and musicians
positioned throughout the
congregation.
Titled "Voiceless mass," it was
conceived as a liturgical mass,
but with a difference -- instead
of a choir, there's an absence,
the native voices long silenced
by the catholic church.
The piece was awarded the
pulitzer prize for music in
2022, cited for evoking the
weight of history.
For composer raven Chacon, it's
an example of the idea of hojon,
from the navajo dine language.
>> That idea of hojon means
maybe things lining up with
other things.
Maybe it's ourselves and our
position here in the universe
and us finding ourselves inside
of all of this and realizing
that we are in a timeline of
other occurrences that happen.
And for me, that's what music
is.
It is when you hear something
line up with something else, and
you want to hear that again.
Jeffrey: The 45-year-old Chacon,
a member of the navajo nation,
spent his early years on the
reservation in northeastern
Arizona, before moving with his
family to Albuquerque, new
Mexico, where he later picked up
the guitar and other
instruments, including
electronic.
He now lives in the Hudson
valley of New York with his
wife, Candice Hopkins, executive
director of forge project, a
contemporary native-led arts
organization.
Chacon is a collector, and
creator, of sounds, constantly
experimenting.
Expanding what music can be.
He writes for traditional
instruments, but has them played
in unusual ways or places.
He also composes for very
different kinds of instruments.
Here, fog horns, in a piece
performed by ship's crews in
Bergen, Norway.
And another titled "Report,"
written for different kinds of
firearms.
Raven: They're all sounds.
But they all have other
meanings, of course.
You wonder, what is on those
ships?
What are those ships bringing?
Where are those ships from?
How long are they going to stay?
Same with the guns.
Who's holding the guns?
Why are they firing?
Where are they firing these
weapons?
Are they weapons or are they
tools?
That's the hope, is that
somebody hears something inside
of that.
Whether that is a story or an
emotion.
Jeffrey: The connection to the
history of a specific place is
often important to Chacon, as
seen here in a piece performed
on alcatraz island, the former
prison and site of a native
occupation starting in 1969.
Sometimes he conveys meaning in
very direct ways, as in a work
titled "Three songs," three
women singing in their
indigenous languages, each
standing in the original
homeland of her ancestors, from
where they were displaced,
hitting a snare drum, the symbol
of the U.S. Army.
So music is sound, broadly
defined, with meaning?
Raven: It can have meaning, it
can tell a story, it can relay a
lot of information.
I think we go into musical
situations wanting to be
uplifted, no matter what that
music is.
But if something else can
happen, I mean, if the piece can
relay history, a history that's
not spoken enough, then that
surely is a beautiful thing.
And so, a composer should try to
find all the tactics of being
able to let that be expressed.
Jeffrey: So you're writing for a
bird whistle?
Raven: Yeah, for bird call.
Yep.
This will be this line here,
this little DI DI DI DI.
Jeffrey: Chacon does this
visually, as well.
He uses traditional notation but
also makes his own graphic
scores.
And these, like the videos of
his work, have found their way
into museum exhibitions,
including the prestigious
Whitney biennial.
Chacon has also been concerned
to bring the world of sound and
music to a new generation not
otherwise exposed to it.
Since 2004, he's mentored more
than 300 native youth, helping
them compose their own quartets.
It's all part of a whole.
If I ask you, as I'm sure you've
been asked before, do you see
yourself as an indigenous
composer?
Is that how you think of
yourself?
Raven: I don't know what an
indigenous composer is.
There's actually not that many
of us out there.
So maybe someday, you know,
there will be hundreds and maybe
it becomes some kind of genre.
But it's a label I'm not always
-- I have to really think about
it before using that label,
because people have a lot of
assumptions.
At the same time, I want people
to understand that, even though
there's only a few of us, there
are indigenous people working in
this medium, in classical music,
chamber music, sound.
Jeffrey: With the pulitzer
prize, more people do now know.
Chacon says he next hopes to
write a work for full orchestra.
For the "Pbs newshour," I'm
Jeffrey brown in New York's
Hudson valley.
Geoff: That is fascinating.
He is expanding the idea of what
we consider music.