{"id":74293,"date":"2019-09-06T18:42:18","date_gmt":"2019-09-07T00:42:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lakota-music-project-finds-common-ground-through-collaboration\/"},"modified":"2019-09-07T00:42:18","modified_gmt":"2019-09-07T00:42:18","slug":"lakota-music-project-finds-common-ground-through-collaboration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/lakota-music-project-finds-common-ground-through-collaboration\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakota Music Project finds common ground through collaboration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"2010
2010 Native American Day.<\/span>Courtesy of South Dakota Symphony Orchestra<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota is as big as Delaware and Rhode Island combined, and it has some of the highest poverty rates in the United States. For the past three years, it has also hosted performances of music written by high school composers for the instruments of a European-style symphony orchestra.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really a great thing to see these kids, and the pride that the reservation has in having these kids be stars,\u201d said David Gier, music director of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra.<\/p>\n

The annual music academy is only one arm of the Lakota Music Project, a collaborative program developed with the orchestra and musicians of the tribe. The goal is to create cultural cooperation and break down barriers, enabling audiences to learn more about traditional art \u2013 of the Lakota, and of a symphony orchestra.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough music, we are able to show a side of us that nobody gets to see,\u201d said Emmanuel Black Bear, a traditional singer and two-time winner of a Native American Music Award. \u201cThere is a lot of negative media around the Native people \u2026 (but) we have a rich culture. I wanted to be a part of something where we could show the positive side of our people through music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black Bear, along with the cedar flute player Bryan Akipa and nine members of the South Dakota Symphony, is bringing the Lakota Music Project to Washington, D.C., in October, when he will perform at the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of the American Indian and at Washington National Cathedral \u2013 part of a festival conceived and hosted by the PostClassical Ensemble to spotlight Native American influences on American classical music.<\/p>\n

\u201cI find the Lakota Music Project a visionary undertaking,\u201d said Joseph Horowitz, the PostClassical Ensemble\u2019s executive director, \u201cand I feel it deserves to be more widely known.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

The project was spawned in 2005, shortly after Gier took up his post in Sioux Falls. \u201cEducation\u201d and \u201ccommunity outreach\u201d were not yet buzzwords in the orchestra world, but Gier was eager to develop such programs, and he quickly learned that the main racial tensions in his new community were between Native Americans and non-Native Americans.<\/p>\n

He began approaching local leaders and experts, including Ronnie Theisz, a professor emeritus at Black Hills State University and the author of several books about Lakota culture. The two men talked about creating a true joint endeavor, something that would be meaningful to everyone involved and that would exist beyond a mere one-off performance. A eureka moment came on a snowy evening at Pine Ridge when the orchestra\u2019s nine principals and the Porcupine Singers, a drumming circle renowned on the reservation, met to exchange ideas and play music for one another.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt one point,\u201d Gier said, \u201cthe keeper of the drum said, \u2018We sing the old songs; we\u2019re not a powwow group. We really want to pass on our tradition to the next generation, because we feel it\u2019s valuable.\u2019 I said, \u2018Bingo.\u2019\u201d The musician had named the main thing both groups had in common.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of differences as well. A European-style orchestra and a Native American drumming group are unlikely bedfellows.<\/p>\n

\u201cNative music is more freestyle,\u201d said Black Bear, who has been part of the Lakota Music Project since 2009. \u201cOur count starts when we start. We have timing, but it\u2019s not one-two-three-four. In the beginning, it was kind of difficult to match them together.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first Lakota Music Project tour, in 2009, established a template the project\u2019s concerts still follow. Theisz, who became a mentor to the project, suggested grouping the concert around four themes \u2013 love and death, joy and sadness \u2013 with related pieces of music from each culture. Barber\u2019s \u201cAdagio for Strings,\u201d for instance, was contrasted with a Lakota song for a fallen warrior.<\/p>\n

The second half featured new works drawing on Lakota themes. Brent Michael Davids\u2019 \u201cBlack Hills Olowan,\u201d the first commission, involves a traditional Lakota song embedded in a Western orchestral setting. The D.C. performances will include works by the Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha\u2019 Tate, a former composer-in-residence of the South Dakota Symphony, and Jeffrey Paul, the orchestra\u2019s principal oboist.<\/p>\n

Somewhat ironically, the Lakota Music Project is heading to Washington as a result of Horowitz\u2019s championing of the Indianist movement, a school that flourished in the early 20th century in which American classical composers based works on putatively Native American themes. Horowitz calls this \u201ca major American cultural event that\u2019s been totally forgotten\u201d \u2013 though he concedes that one reason for its neglect is that \u201cMost of the music is kitsch.\u201d Still, he cites three significant figures who incorporated \u201cIndian\u201d themes: Antonin Dvorak, who used supposedly Native American as well as African American melodies in his \u201cNew World Symphony;\u201d the Italian composer Ferruccio Busoni; and the obscure Arthur Farwell, whom Horowitz calls \u201cone of the most amazing people in the history of American music.\u201d In addition to the Lakota Music Project\u2019s contribution, October\u2019s performances will result in a commercial recording of Farwell\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

\"South
South Dakota Symphony Orchestra<br><br>Lakota Music Project featuring the Creekside Singers Drum Group performing the world premiere of \u201cWaktegli Olowan.\u201d<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

From the Lakota point of view, however, the \u201cIndianist\u201d movement represents cultural appropriation and a fundamental misunderstanding of actual Native American traditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when they loved to take source music from different Indian tribes,\u201d Theisz said of the Indianist composers, \u201cthey didn\u2019t appreciate it, and considered it primitive; they had to supply harmonies and musical qualities to improve it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re trying to counter that,\u201d he said. \u201cHearing the real music is part of the project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lakota Music Project\u2019s main focus remains on building bridges through music.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy principal cellist for the first seven years of the project was a Russian guy,\u201d Gier said. \u201cOn the first tour (in 2009), we played the program five times. We got to love these drummers, the camaraderie, being on the road. And the cellist said, \u2018You know, David, I\u2019ve played a lot of Tchaikovsky in my life; but this may be the most important thing I\u2019ve ever done.\u2019 It\u2019s just human connection, and feeling like we can make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black Bear has performed in Washington a few times before.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy view on coming to Washington is we\u2019re getting a bigger stage for the project, so now some people are going to see our vision,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s our hope. \u2026 No matter which cultures it is, we can work together, and that\u2019s how we create a better future. I know it\u2019s a long shot. But if we can help it in any way and show people that we can work together, then we\u2019re doing what we set out to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018We really want to pass on our tradition to the next generation\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74294,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[559],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-74293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-music"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74293"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=74293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}