NativeAmerican by Kyle MacMillan Journeys 36 symphony may–june 2009 In Mark Grey’s Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio, ancient Navajo cleansing rites fuse with contemporary classi- cal music. Based on the Navajo Enemy Way (Anna’jí) Cer- emony, the 70-minute oratorio portrays the spiritual struggle and eventual reconciliation of a returning war veteran. “Nihiyázhí nílí (You are our beloved child),” cries the cho- rus, representing the commu- nity. Grey offers distant echoes but no direct quotations of the tribe’s music, sculpting a suit- ably sacred musical setting for Navajo poet Laura Tohe’s elo- quent libretto.
At the work’s premiere by The Phoenix Symphony in February 2008, projected photographs of Navajo sacred sites by Deborah O’Grady added a visual dimen- sion. “I did cry several times during the oratorio, because although the music was very different from what I listen to, it told a story with which I am very familiar,” wrote Marly Shebala, a reporter for the Navajo Times who had never attended a classical- music concert before. The performances drew non-Navajo and Navajo audiences alike, with one tribal leader calling it one of the great experiences of his life. Cross-cultural works like Enemy Slayer are becoming increasingly common in the symphonic world, as more composers seek to draw on the rich, largely untapped well Amy Mills led the April 2008 world premiere of Bill Miller’s The Last Stand with Wisconsin’s La of traditional Indian music. (Many Native Crosse Symphony Orchestra, the Battle Point Singers (right), Miller (left, playing drum), and Americans currently use such terms as performer Lance Tallmadge (with spread arms center stage). In March 2009, Miller became the “Native American” and “American Indian” first Native American to perform with a symphony orchestra in Israel, when he joined the Israel Kibbutz Orchestra for six performances of the work. interchangeably.) At the same time, such N ational Museum of the American Indian and David J. Marcou pieces allow orchestras to reach out to by Kyle MacMillan neglected segments of their communi- Native Can a symphony orchestra embrace music ties and provide mainstream audiences a musical bridge to a still little-known, of this nation’s indigenous cultures? It’s a often-overlooked part of America. Classi- proposition based on mutual respect, and cal works that in some way engage Native American themes and musical idioms date composers of European and Native American back to the nineteenth century, as compos- heritage are making the attempt. ers sought to answer Antonín Dvorák’s call
americanorchestras.org 37 Georgia Wettlin- Larsen, program director of the First Nations Composer Initiative, has been performing and lecturing on American Indian music since the 1970s.
I’m just being very on-the-sleeve about doing it.” The recent surge in works with Indian themes can be attributed to a combina- The recent tion of factors, beginning with contempo- surge in works rary composers’ hunger for new, unusual sounds. Internet sites such as iTunes have with Indian made it easier for them and their coun- themes can terparts in other genres to jump back in time or circle the planet in search of raw be attributed materials for their music. More and more to factors composers, such as Fleischer, are realizing that include that some of the richest and least tapped Enemy Slayer sources for such material are the diverse, composer Mark composers’ centuries-old musical traditions of Ameri- Grey and librettist can Indians. “I’m profoundly moved by the Laura Tohe hunger for new, honesty and intensity that I find in Native unusual sounds. American music, the intensity of the chant, the drum music, the haunting beauty of for a uniquely American musical aesthetic. Harth-Bedoya’s Caminos del Inka project, the native flute, and the whole nature of He urged them to draw on such innate which premiered at the Fort Worth Sym- the way music functions in Native Ameri- traditions as American Indian music, but phony Orchestra in 2007. Harth-Bedoya’s can culture,” says Fleischer, whose Indian- the harmful results of such appropria- project is not focused specifically on indig- inspired work, Echoes, was premiered in tion became clear with the romanticized enous music, but draws inspiration from October 2008 by the Anchorage Sym- musical stereotypes that often resulted. the ancient Inca trails that crisscross six phony Orchestra, where Fleischer is music Most non-Indian composers today are contemporary South American countries. director. more sensitive to the Indian cultures they The past five years have seen the rise of For symphony orchestras, commission- embrace and strive for authenticity, but the significant Indian composers who, follow- ing and performing such works is part of dangers of stereotyping and cultural viola- ing a trail blazed by Louis Ballard, focus a larger, ongoing effort to connect with tion remain. on the classical realm. Among the best under-served groups of all kinds, includ- If interactions between classical and known is Tate, a member of the Chickasaw ing African Americans and Latinos. These Indian music are not exactly new, recently nation, whose works have been performed organizations realize that they have to go there has been an unprecedented burst by the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, beyond their traditional constituencies of such works. In addition to Enemy National Symphony Orchestra, and Min- and build an audience that more closely Slayer and such pieces as Jerod Impich- nesota Civic Orchestra. He makes a point matches the ethnic and racial make-ups of chaachaaha’ Tate’s Nitoshi’ Imali, Randall of expressing his Indian heritage in every- their communities. To mark its 60th anni- Craig Fleischer’s Echoes, and Bill Miller’s thing he writes. “Debussy was definitely versary, The Phoenix Symphony commis- The Last Stand, there’s also Robert Kap- focused on being French,” Tate says. “He sioned Enemy Slayer from Grey, its Music ilow’s Summer Sun, Winter Moon—which is was very clear about it in his writing. So, Alive composer in residence, and sur- expected to be spotlighted in a documen- I’m just doing the same thing that he rounded the performances with multiple tary later this year on public television— and Bartók, and even Liszt, were doing. events devoted to Navajo culture. (Music and the Peruvian-born conductor Miguel Beethoven was very specifically German. Alive is a residency program of the League
38 symphony may–june 2009 of American Orchestras and Meet The Kansas, chose Robert Kapilow to write a music and themes in an authentic, sensitive Composer.) The piece drew favorable cov- symphonic work to mark the 200th anni- way, he says, some works “over-romanticize erage in a series of articles in the Navajo versary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition and over-mystify” such elements and can Times, and at least 100 Navajo attended in 2004. The New Jersey composer first wind up offering a kind of stereotyped ver- the performances. “I had never seen so thought he would base his composition on sion of how outsiders think Indian music many native people in the symphony hall, the explorers’ diaries. When that idea did ought to sound. “At the end of the day, the and for some of them, it was the first time not pan out, he opted instead to follow the music speaks for itself, and bad music is bad they had ever been to any kind of a perfor- advice of historian Robert Archibald, head music,” Tate says. “Artistically, I keep my mance like this,” says Laura Tohe. of the bicentennial commemorations, and ears open and I try to keep an open mind.” explore the landmark undertaking from To avoid such stereotyping, Fleischer Crossover Challenges the American Indian perspective. worked hard to maintain the integrity of This cross-cultural music exchange has In 2003, Kapilow traveled also been helped by the increasing vis- to Montana to meet with ibility of Indian performers in mainstream the Circle of Tribal Advis- Jerod society, a trend bolstered by the eleven- ers, which Archibald had Impichchaachaaha' Tate, composer year-old Native American Music Awards assembled. They quickly made of Nitoshi’ Imali, or “Nammys.” High-profile Indian per- it clear that their ancestral premiered by formers such as singer and guitarist Joanne stories belonged to them and Civic Orchestra Shenandoah, flutist R. Carlos Nakai, and they did not intend to share of Minneapolis in Bill Miller, a Grammy Award-winning them. “I had the sudden real- October 2007 Mohican singer-songwriter, can be found ization that, in a weird way, I in folk, alternative rock, and world music. was Lewis and Clark all over In addition, all three have performed with again,” Kapilow recalls. “Once symphony orchestras, and Miller, working again, I’d be another white guy with two collaborators, wrote an orches- taking their stuff and using it tral work commissioned by the La Crosse for my own purposes without Symphony Orchestra in Wisconsin. Titled even realizing that this was in The Last Stand, it commemorates the fact what I would be doing.” Battle of Little Big Horn and includes the Chastened but nonetheless composer as soloist on the tiny bird flute intrigued by the people he and low-pitched double-drone flute. encountered, he set aside his Organizations such as the First Nations desire for source material and Composer Initiative, a branch of the stayed for the rest of the gath- American Composers Forum in St. Paul, ering simply to learn more. Minnesota, promote such crossover. Since During several subse- its founding in 2004, the FNCI has pro- quent visits to the Blackfoot vided funding for more than 35 new Indian Reservation in Mon- Indian works in genres ranging from clas- tana, Kapilow became good sical to hip-hop. In addition, it helped friends with Blackfoot writer spawn the Coast Orchestra, an ensemble and poet Darrell Robes Kipp. of thirteen classically trained Indian musi- Kipp ultimately supplied the cians founded in 2008 by White Moun- composer with what would tain Apache violinist Laura Ortman. Edu- become the principal text for cation Through Cultural and Historical the resulting half-hour work, Organizations, a six-member consortium, Summer Sun, Winter Moon. supplied the impetus and funding for “In the end, if you’re respectful Fleischer’s Echoes, a 27-minute piece that and you’re authentic, people drew on the Indian culture and heritage in end up trusting you,” Kapilow the consortium’s main geographic centers says. “It’s no different there along historical whaling routes in Massa- than anywhere else.” chusetts, Hawaii, and Alaska. Non-Indian composers who The challenges of blending Western try to incorporate Indian ele- classical traditions and Indian traditions ments into their music face a were perhaps no more evident than when host of challenges, starting the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, with simply avoiding what Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, and Tate calls the “cheese factor.”
the Carlsen Center in Overland Park, Rather than present native Alana R othstein americanorchestras.org 39 Finale at 2008 world premiere of Randall Craig Fleischer’s Echoes with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra and performers from Hawaii, Alaska, and Massachusetts, led by the composer. Right: Dancer at the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra’s world premiere of Echoes Clark James Mishler Clark James Mishler
the Indian music he borrowed for Echoes, but not in any way make it sound like it is poser Steve Reich, who has been strongly such as a traditional Yupik drum song. To being Westernized, that was the challenge. influenced by Asian gamelan music. Kap- convey its essential rawness and intensity, It didn’t come off sounding like watered- ilow cites Reich’s advice to visit a culture, the composer incorporated electric gui- down John Williams. The Yupik songs absorb what it has to offer, and come back tar, electric bass, and a drum set into his sounded like Yupik music with orchestral changed. Then be who you are and allow orchestration. “So, finding a harmonic lan- accompaniment.” the experiences to filter into your music in guage,” he says, “finding something that Kapilow took a very different tack, fol- your own way. “I think that’s what I did,” the orchestra can do to complement that lowing the example of minimalist com- Kapilow says. “A lot of the textures, the sounds, the rhythmic feel, might be influ- enced by Indian music, but I tried really hard not to just do a graft, just take some- thing from one world and smash it into another world.” Mark Grey, composer of Enemy Slayer, says that because all Indian music has a ceremonial or other specific societal function, the sound becomes all too eas- ily stereotyped when it is snatched out of context. For him, the challenge is to find ways to fully integrate indigenous music and the cultural meanings essential to it. Grey’s first idea for his oratorio was based on the Navajo story of the world’s creation, but red flags immediately went up among tribal elders, because such stories are sacred and can only be told at certain ceremonial events. So, working with Tohe, who grew up on the Navajo reservation, the two created a story based on the Enemy Way Ceremony, which is meant to bring heal- ing to a physically or spiritually wounded war veteran. “It’s grounded in Navajoness,” Tohe says of the work. “I’ve used the ideas of what Navajoness is and how one heals through these ceremonies. What I wanted to bring across in this is how we as people heal our own people. We have these cer- emonies, and we’ve always had these cer- emonies. And these ceremonies connect to
40 symphony may–june 2009 Miguel Harth-Bedoya Indian music has leads the Fort Worth Symphony’s 2007 world a ceremonial or other premiere of Caminos del Inka. The work is not specific societal func- what would typically be tion, and the sound thought of as “Indian” but explores three centuries becomes all too easily of music influenced by stereotyped when it is the Incas. snatched out of con- text. The challenge is to find ways to fully integrate indigenous music and its essential cultural meanings. Fabiana van Lente our mythic stories, and they’re very power- with a mix of a lot of spices,” he says. the creation of his Indian-themed opera ful stories.” “With me, I don’t downsize my spices. I Daoma. Despite their best efforts, the ide- To help tribes protect the sanctity of don’t take away from my culture.” alized use of Indian motifs in these now- certain ceremonies and provide guidance forgotten works comes off as hopelessly to non-Indian composers seeking to use Historical Perspectives stereotyped to contemporary ears. traditional music in their pieces, the advi- Antonín Dvorák arrived in New York City Excerpts from both operas were fea- sory board of the First Nations Composer for a three-year stay in the United States in tured in “West Meets West,” a milestone Initiative plans to develop a code of eth- 1892, and he soon began talking about the program that took place in 1992 at the ics, an overarching set of protocols that country’s lack of a nationalist movement individual tribes could then adapt to their akin to what he and Bedrich Smetana specific cultural traditions. “We’re not the were doing with Bohemian folk music. music police, but we know that there have “America can have her own music, a fine to be some standards and protocols in place music growing out up from her own soil so that sacred music, for one thing, is not and having its own special character—the misappropriated or stolen,” says Georgia natural voice of a free and great nation,” he Wettlin-Larsen, FNCI’s program director. said in a New York Herald interview. He While non-Indian composers aim to claimed to have followed his own advice, gain credibility within a skeptical Indian incorporating spirituals and American world, Indian composers struggle to be Indian melodies into his Symphony No. taken seriously by the classical world. “To 9 (“From the New World”). Some listen- be quite honest with you, there is a very ers supposedly heard the story of Hia- clear racism of low expectations,” Tate watha in the piece. Dvorák later recanted says. “That’s an enemy to anyone from any his remarks and denounced such associa- culture, actually. I have to be really care- tions, calling the work “genuine Bohemian ful about how I explain what I do, because music.” when non-Indians say ‘Native American,’ Regardless of how American the Sym- “... utterly spellbinding ...” there’s a lot of low expectations that go phony No. 9 was, Dvorák’s call for a dis- San Francisco Classical Music Examiner with that.” Miller says he felt he was run- tinctively American brand of classical ning the risk of not being taken seriously, music resonated with composers at the or of losing his musical identity, when he time—and still does. Among those from set to work on his first classical work. But the turn of the last century who took up he realized he had already overcome simi- his call was Henry Purmort Eames, who lar barriers in the folk and alternative rock studied piano with Clara Schumann and scene, where he toured with Tori Amos later lived in Nebraska between 1898 and and Pearl Jam in the 1990s and now head- 1913. He wrote The Sacred Tree, an opera lines his own band. The secret for him has based on Omaha Indian themes. Another thunderbird-records.com always been to wear his Indian identity American composer, Charles Wakefield openly and proudly. “My favorite foods are Cadman, spent a summer on the Omaha Distributed by Naxos of America, Inc. Thai and Vietnamese and ethnic foods, Reservation around 1909, which inspired americanorchestras.org 41 William inc. Charles Moss/illume productions,
Blackfoot writer and poet Darrell Robes Kipp (left) with composer Rob Kapilow. Kipp and Kapilow collaborated on Summer Sun, Winter Moon, a co-commission by the Carlsen Center, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the Louisiana Philharmonic for the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It was was repeated at the Colorado Music Fes- conceived by Bruce Hangen, then music tival in Boulder in 2008, and The Phoenix director of the Omaha Symphony, as a way Symphony recorded it for the Naxos label, to mark the 500th anniversary of Christo- which released it in March. Posing even pher Columbus’s arrival in the Americas more performing challenges are works that and the 125th anniversary of Nebraska’s call for the involvement of specific tribal statehood. He commissioned what became music groups, who cannot easily travel to the concert’s centerpiece, Douglas Hill’s other parts of the United States. That is a Ceremonial Images, based on the Helushka big reason why Hill’s Ceremonial Images, Ceremony of the Omaha Indians. The which incorporated the Omaha Indian work combined the Omaha Symphony drumming ensemble, has sat on the shelf with the Rough Riders, a tribal drumming since its last performances in 1993. and singing group from the Omaha Res- Whatever the ultimate fate of these ervation. “I brought the drum, the play- recent works, the trend shows no sign of ers, and the singers into the symphonic slowing, especially considering that Indian realm,” says Hill, a professor of music at involvement in classical music is just in the the University of Wisconsin at Madison. beginning stages. Three of the Chickasaw “That was really my main idea: to com- and Navajo students Tate has tutored are bine the two cultures, and combine them college music majors, and a fourth just through music.” The work, which was later received a scholarship to study composi- repeated in Omaha and featured on CBS’s tion at Oklahoma City University. “The Sunday Morning, set the stage for similar Indian presence in classical music is grow- musical fusions that have followed. ing very naturally,” says Tate, “and I think If there is a downside to some of the it will continue to grow.” recent Indian-themed works, it might lie in their tribal or geographic specificity. Kyle MacMillan is a staff columnist at The Will orchestras, for example, in the North- Denver Post, where he covers classical music. east—more than 2,000 miles away from the Navajo reservation—want to perform a work such as Enemy Slayer? The answer is To listen to samples of music by Jerod probably yes, if the compositions are musi- Impichchaachaaha’ Tate and Mark Grey, visit cally compelling enough. Under Music the Symphony area of americanorchestras.org Director Michael Christie, Enemy Slayer and click on “Symphony online exclusives.”
42 symphony may–june 2009