New Voices: Celebrating Young American Indian Musicians

Crossing Borders Music joins Shki Bmaadzi to showcase the musical accomplishments of young American Indian composers, performers, and dancers in the first-ever event of its kind. The concert will include performances of string quartets by Chickasaw composers Cruise Berry and Katie Barrick, as well as music and dancing in the style used in inter-tribal powwows performed by Shki Bmaadzi and featuring members of the Chi Nations Youth Council, including original choreography to selected music for string quartet. The performance will take place at the brand new location of Chicago’s American Indian Center, the oldest organization of its kind in the country.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

String Quartets

The program will feature Barrick’s Not For the Faint of Heart, Berry’s Fantasia, and a regional premiere of Berry’s String Quartet #3, Donne XIV. Donne XIV is inspired by John Donne’s Holy Sonnet #14, and by the documentary “This May Be the Last Time” about the mysterious disappearance of Pete Harjo in 1962, and the members of his Seminole and Muskogee communities who sung the hymns of hope and faith as they searched for him. Berrry’s work uses a melody based on a Muskogee-Creek hymn that was orally passed along to the composer by a man featured in the documentary – a melody Berry considers a “connection to the secular and sacred.” Efforts to preserve these undocumented hymns have begun only in the past several years.

The program will also include Flare Up! by Michael-Thomas Foumai, a composer of Samoan heritage. The breathlessly energetic work was inspired by Samoan fire knife dancing.

The quartets will be performed by Roy Meyer and Maya Shiraishi, violins, William McLellan, viola, and Tom Clowes, cello.

Shki Bmaadzi

Also featured will be Shki Bmaadzi (“New Beginnings” in Ojibwe), a native youth drum and dance ensemble affiliated with the Chi Nations Youth Council. Led by Weylin Webster, Shki Bmaadzi has performed at Soldier Field, around the Midwest, in Arizona, and in Utah, where it won a drumming contest. Shki Bmaadzi specializes in the music in the style performed at inter-tribal powwows, including the vocal performance of “vocables” – syllables without any literal meaning, originally used so that American Indians of different tribes could communicate solidarity without a shared language. Skhi Bmaadzi will perform original choreography to selected music for string quartet.

About the Composers

Berry and Barrick were participants in the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy, where they studied music composition with Chickasaw composer Jerod Impichchaachaaha’ Tate. Their works were recorded on “Oshtali: Music for String Quartet”and “Tobachi: Chickasaw Nation Young Composers Recording Project” with the Linden Quartet. Berry recently finished his studies in Music Composition at Oklahoma City University. Barrick is currently Education Coordinator at the Oklahoma City Philharmonic.

A note on terminology: We use “American Indian” rather than “Native American” to reflect the preferences of a majoirty of American Indians as expressed in US census data and a US Department of Labor survey.