Raven Chacon seated: photo by Adolphe Pierre-Louis, courtesy Albuquerque Journal
The Nerman Museum will host award-winning artist Raven Chacon as the Jerome Nerman Visiting Lecturer at JCCC’s Midwest Trust Center on Thursday, Oct 27, 6:30pm. There will be a reception prior with light bites and refreshments at 5:30pm. This event is free and open to the public, no tickets or reservations required.
Chacon’s ground-breaking compositions have garnered wide attention recently. He won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music for his composition Voiceless Mass and is the first Native American artist to win that honor. His work is also featured in the 2022 Whitney Biennial. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear the artist making the most engaging experimental music today!
Chacon is from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation and currently lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Chacon’s exhibits and performances — as a solo artist, collaborator or with musical ensemble Postcommodity — have taken him all over the world.
Every year, he teaches 20 students to write string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprenticeship Project (NACAP). He is the recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship in Music, the Creative Capital Award in Visual Arts, the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship, the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition, and the Pew Fellowship.
Chacon’s work is included in the exhibition “Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts,” on view at the Kansas City Art Institute Gallery: Center for Contemporary Practice now through Oct. 30, 2022. That exhibition, curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson and organized by Independent Curators International (ICI), poses a central question—how can a score be a call and tool for decolonization?
The Nerman Museum is also teaming up with KCAI and UMKC’s Paul Rudy to host a performance of Chacon’s piece, American Ledger No. 1, at Agnes Arts in KC on Oct 26. More information about these events, and to sign up to receive a reminder, see the Nerman Museum calendar.
