Some could say that 2023 was a banner year for Native American composers, and 2024 appears to be right on course.
Last year, Raven Chacon (Diné), who in 2022 became the first Native composer to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Music, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, aka the “genius grant.”
Commissioned works by Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate (Chickasaw) were performed by the New York Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and Turtle Island Quartet, among other ensembles, and Clans, from his piece Lowak Shoppala’, had its New York premiere at Carnegie Hall in March 2024. Brent Michael Davids (Stockbridge-Munsee), co-founder of the Native American Composers Apprentice Program at the Grand Canyon Music Festival, received major funding in 2023 for the development of a large-scale musical composition, Requiem for America, which he describes as an “exploration of genocide” in three parts with 18 movements, and most recently, his orchestral work Indigenous/Undigenous II: Lenape was premiered at Carnegie Hall this March. Those are just the highlights.
Interest in the works of Indigenous composers has been steadily growing, along with performances of their music. According to conductor Rei Hotoda, music director of the Fresno Philharmonic, concertgoers are ready to move beyond Beethoven and Brahms. She points to the New York premiere of Tate’s piece Clans, for which she conducted the American Composers Orchestra, as proof that audiences are becoming more adventurous. “There is definitely curiosity from concertgoers around Indigenous music,” she says. “They are more open. The fact that Jerod’s piece Pisachi was played by the New York Philharmonic the same weekend as Clans says that these works should be in the repertoire.”
She adds that the Carnegie Hall performance “was as powerful as any Brahms or Mahler symphony” and that it brought down the house. Clans features a children’s chorus, Chickasaw dancers and vocalists, including Tate’s 10-year-old son Heloha, storytellers, and narration provided by Tate.
Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate credits Native composers themselves for this recent surge of interest in their works. “We’re just doing what just what humans do: creating,” he says.
If his calendar is any indication, the demand for works by Indigenous composers is likely to increase—Tate said that he’s booked with commissions for the next five years. His commissioned pieces for the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Dover String Quartet, and CityMusic Cleveland will be performed this year.
Tate credits Native composers themselves for this recent surge of interest in their works, and the late Cherokee composer Louis W. Ballard for paving the way.
“It’s not because of any statements on paper,” he said, referring to announcements of diversity and equity initiatives. “It’s because of us. We’ve been on a natural growth curve for a while, that’s why we’re garnering national attention. It’s happening in all the fine arts throughout Indian Country—authors, painters, poets, and in film. We’re just doing what just what humans do: creating.”
But despite the growing interest Indigenous composers, a lack of diversity continues to be a problem for orchestras.
In 2022, when the Tucson Symphony Orchestra put out a call for composers in the Southwest to participate in a mentorship program, they expected to draw Indigenous applicants, given the large number of tribal communities in the area. But none applied. The program, called EarShot, is overseen by the American Composers Orchestra (ACO), which partners with orchestras around the country to discover and develop emerging talent. Applicants are required to submit a completed score to be workshopped. The lack of Native applicants led to discussions on why none applied and what can be done to attract them, says Loki Karuna, director of artistic equity at the ACO. “The first step in solving the issue was finding out what the barriers might be for Native composers,” he says. “Maybe they don’t know about our programs, or they don’t have a completed score to submit.”
Another potential obstacle for Native composers is that many don’t write music using traditional notation, a requirement for composing orchestral works. The EarShot group would need a different approach in attracting applicants.
In 2023 the ACO and the Tucson Symphony Orchestra announced the EarShot CoLABoratory Residencies. The one-year program, founded about a decade ago, is designed to develop the work of composers from more experimental backgrounds, or who are from musical traditions that are underrepresented in the orchestra world. With the help of Raven Chacon, they chose three Native composers and musicians ready to make the leap into composing for the orchestra world: violinist Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache), Suzanne Kite (Oglala Lakota), and Michael Begay (Diné).
The residency gives the composers and the orchestra musicians who will perform their pieces time to discuss ideas and ask questions as the score is being written. It’s a level of collaboration that is usually missing from the creative process in orchestras, according to Melissa Ngan, president and CEO of the American Composers Orchestra. “Typically, an orchestra sees a completed piece a few days beforehand, which doesn’t give performers time to understand and expand the vision of the composer,” she says. “Collaboration is important when exploring Native American artists, especially if their work is grounded in cultural processes. What’s special about CoLab is it breaks down the hierarchal structure of how orchestras are run. It’s a space where direct conversations can happen between conductor, composer, and musicians.”
Collaboration and education are at the center of the South Dakota Symphony’s Lakota Music Project, which was developed in partnership with Lakota musicians and community leaders. The project was founded in 2005 and is still going strong with new works for the 2024–2025 season.
In September 2023, orchestra members and Lakota musicians, singers, and dancers met to discuss future goals for the project and to have a jam session. Last year, the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra received a $2 million gift that will allow more funding for the project. Under orchestra Music Director Delta David Gier’s leadership, the Lakota Music Project has become a role model for orchestras interested in working with Native composers and musicians. “I’m seeing a lot of ticking of boxes going on, which is a little distressing to me,” he says, referring to orchestras that play the works of Native composers but fail to engage with their communities in a meaningful way. “We work hard to attach every single concert to the community, not just Native community, but other communities as well. We work hard for relevance.”
Collaboration and education are at the center of the South Dakota Symphony’s Lakota Music Project, which was developed with Lakota musicians and community leaders.
At the September gathering with Lakota community members, Oglala Lakota singer Emmanuel Black Bear, explained to the orchestra the importance of asking permission to incorporate traditional songs in new compositions. Black Bear has been involved with the project since its inception. It’s a sensitive topic, but the bonds of friendship between the orchestra and the Lakota performers enable them to have tough discussions, according to Gier. “We learn many things form each other and we give each other a lot of grace in screwing up, because that’s what friends do,” he says.
In that spirit, Black Bear presented the orchestra with a gift: new songs and permission to use them in their compositions.
Composer Brent Michael Davids says that there’s been “a huge shift” in the public’s consciousness around Native issues since the protests at Standing Rock over the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016. He points to the number of arts organizations that have contacted the Lenape Center, a non-profit cultural center in New York City, about land acknowledgements as one indicator of awareness. “There’s been a huge uptick,” says Davids, who is a co-director of the Lenape Center. “The Metropolitan Museum of Art even put their land acknowledgement recognizing the Lenape at the entrance to their building.”
Still, composer Tonya Wind Singer (Tohono O’dham/Mexican) says she is surprised by the recent interest in her work. Her orchestral piece Creation, which she wrote in 2009, was performed last year by the World Youth Symphony Orchestra at the Interlochen Arts Camp in Michigan, and a newer work commissioned by the Cape Symphony Orchestra in Cape Cod—Wampanoag: Stories for All Time—was performed in 2021. Creation garnered high praise from conductor Jung Ho-Pak who, in an interview with Interlochen Public Radio, described the Phoenix-based Wind Singer as “an incredibly virtuosic, masterful composer.”
Wind Singer says that she’s pleased to see new audiences embrace her work. “There’s a lot of new composers out there and lots of new music out there,” she says. “Most orchestras seem to cater to audiences who go to the symphony to hear Beethoven and Mozart, but it seems like that’s changing.”
A Note on Nomenclature: The terms Native American and American Indian are used interchangeably in this article. Native people prefer to be identified by their tribal affiliations, but when speaking of all of the Native Americans in the continental United States, the above references are acceptable, according to the Native American Journalists Association. Tribal affiliations of individuals in this piece sometimes appear in parentheses next to their names. In Canada, Indigenous peoples are called First Nations. The term “Native” is used as an adjective to describe art, music, and fashion.
