Robert, you all had me from Flandreau!

I thought it couldn't get better than that first night. But I have to admit at every concert I thought, "THIS IS THE BEST ONE," then the next night I'd think, "THIS IS THE BEST ONE."

The contrast on the first half was so interesting and humorous at times. Hearing Romeo and Juliet played immediately after the Lakota Rabbit song made me laugh out loud.

But as Melvin started singing and we were moved to standing as we listened to the songs of mourning “where have you gone Swift Elk, your family is crying, I am crying” (or words close to that) I wept.

Every night, five night's in a row it happened. I could feel their voices in my heart. It never ever lessened. In fact the more familiar I became with the drum and the sound of their voices it became more and more powerful. (At Rapid City the gentleman behind me knew the words and was singing along, his companion cried, I cried more).

The contrast - the incredible players of the SDSO performed Barber's Adagio, a completely different sound yet once again the music was making it's way into my heart.

From Gym to Church these incredible artists sounded like one being. Their sound, tone, color, rhythm, heart was not affected by echoing sound systems or reverberating walls.

Robert very clearly pointed out that we were celebrating what we had in common as human beings but Ronnie pointed out just as importantly that we weren't trying to erase the uniqueness of each group.

That was said each time, but yesterday in Rapid City at the First Congregational Church, what was made clear to me was that we are all fearfully and wonderfully made.

Unique creations with the same Father. We have our creator in common. A creator who understands contrast and diversity, who uses it as a design element in the creation.

It is why we do and can make music and why we can music together.

I must mention (as an Italian and a human being) that eating together after three of the performances just made it all that much better. God bless those women and men who made all that food. How did they know how much to make? It was such a joy to eat together after all that incredible music making (and experiencing).

On the first night in Flandreau when the orchestra unexpectedly arrived at the meal filing slowly in the door one at a time, the crowd spontaneously erupted into applause for each and every one of the incredibly talented group. They deserved it.

The composers, Jeff Paul and Brent Michael Davids, WOW, I can only hope we hear this music again soon. Jeff's piece was so haunting and beautiful. The marriage of Melvin’s song and Jeff's music was perfect. Each time I was delighted to hear the instruments subtly repeat what had been vocalized. The electric guitar was perfect and then Jeff explained the inspiration for it being there and that just made it more perfect.

Every night, even after five performances, I was still surprised to find myself wanting to just get up and dance as Brent's piece was coming to a close. It did what he explained it was to do, it gently lead me into Lakota country until I suddenly realized I was fully there, surrounded by the beauty and rhythm of the Lakota and the orchestra was also a part of it.

THANK YOU, Porcupine Singers and your beautiful families for sharing you this week.

Thank you, Robert and Barry and Ronnie and David and Jeff and Brent.

Thank you, SDSO Chamber Orchestra and your families for sharing you as well. And congratulations to the SDSO Lakota Project baby, born the last day of the tour, Charli Zuzanna Fickbohm.

And thank you to all the people with vision and people who have vision AND money to support it!

ENCORE! ENCORE!

By Angela Gier

Rosebud Reservation Performance a Triumph

After a drive across the majestic Missouri River into the rolling plains of south central South Dakota, we arrived in Mission, South Dakota - my home! I imagined the challenge before the Dakota Chamber Orchestra and the Porcupine Singers to keep the enery of the Flandreau and Sioux Falls performances at the heights it had reached but there was no question that they reached NEW heights in Rosebud!

Of course, I knew that the audience would be great! With around 200 in attendance at the Sinte Gleska (Seen-tay Gleh-shkah) University multi-purpose center their anticipation and enthusiasm throughout the entire concert was tremendous! I am a little biased of course as so many of my family were in attendance including my senior parents. What a great evening filled with laughter and another incredible response to the vision of the Lakota Music Project. Folks came all the way from Murdo 45 mile away, Valentine, NE about 35 miles away and from throughout many of our communities on the Rosebud Reservation.

The concert opened and flew from there! One of the really neat connections was between the Porcupine Singers and many in the audience with shared memories of pow-wows pat and the relationships that form over the years of sharing music, stories, laughter and sorrows and always a meal! I sensed the audience was proud of the acknowledgment of traditional music styles by the European style musicians. It is an acknowledgment of traditional singers and a centuries old musical style as legitimate music. I think the members of the Dakota Chamber Orchestra are embracing the spiritual nature of the Lakota Music Project and we are all making the vision of this work our own in a way that will grow reach all corners of South Dakota and the entire region!

While folks from my home know and have always been so kind in their encouragement of all the hats I wear here - from elected tribal leader to being active in the faith community to realizing some musical performance dreams - it was great sharing the evening with them. They too felt the spirit of the evening and felt the work of the commissioned pieces Desert Wind and Black Hill Olowan (Oh-loh-wahng) and responded with quick and lengthy standing ovations for both pieces. What a great night this was, I am almost sad that there are only two more performances!
If you can get there we will see you at Red Cloud Indian School in Pine Ridge tonight at 6:00 pm or in Rapid City at the 1st Congregation Church of Christ located at 1200 Clark Street at 2:00 pm. I know it will be great - but nothing beats the home-town audience! Thank you Rosebud for a great night of music, laughter and, as always, a great meal.

By Robert Moore

Get Ready to be Wowed!

Wow! It happened all over again! Another great and inspiring concert by the Dakota Chamber Orchestra and the Porcupine Singers! I am honored to be performing with and along side of these masters of music and spirit!

The concert was performed last night at a near capacity multi-cultural center in downtown Sioux Falls. The audience was a great mix of family, young, old and a real cross of both American Indian and non-Indian listeners. It was a great testimony to the far reaching goals of the Lakota Music Project - to bring people together. I observed young families who would likely not ever attend a typical symphony concert being swept into the full sounds of the chamber orchestra. I witnessed the enthusiastic standing ovations to the two pieces that combined the Lakota traditional drum music with the complexities of the many moving parts of the orchestra.

Some of the responses seemed wide-eyed at the masterful way these two musical traditions worked together to produce the emotion and spirit of these two composers through music. Brent Michael Davids and Jeffery Paul - with collaboration by Melvin D. Young Bear, the Keeper of the Drum and lead of the Porcupine Singers - have lifted the vision of the audience to see and hear their hearts through their compositions. They have lifted my vision and my spirit to hear the sounds - history, environment, culture, people and music- of the geographic places honored by their work - the Black Hills of South Dakota and the desert of the south west. All I can say is “wow!”

Tonight we are in my home town of Mission, South Dakota. I am pleased that my family and tiospaye (tee-ohsh-pah-yay) - which is Lakota for extended family, will be able to hear and witness a first for the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation! I am the primary care-giver to my senior parents who are celebrating their 65th wedding anniversary this July. They will be there tonight too and after witnessing many things in their lifetime together I am sure they are going to agree with me and add their “wow” to the countless others we are hearing!

Join us tonight in Mission at 7:00 pm or 6:00 pm tomorrow in Pine Ridge at the Red Cloud Indian School or Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm in Rapid City at the 1st Congregational United Church of Christ. I guarantee you will be wowed!

By Robert Moore

World Premieres of Lakota Music Project Performed in Flandreau

While the world was celebrating a new “idol”, and an Olympic gymnast danced off with the coveted mirror ball trophy, a major event was taking shape and happening in the quiet hamlet of Flandreau, South Dakota.

The Lakota Music Project, a collaboration of music and spirit between the South Dakota Chamber Orchestra (members of the SD Symphony), the Porcupine Singers of Pine Ridge, SD (keepers of a traditional music legacy), and yours truly, Robert Moore, raised the roof of the historic Crystal Theatre in downtown Flandreau.

Not one, but TWO WORLD PREMIERES occurred last night. The concert, one of the best I have ever heard or been privileged to participate in, opened with the exploration of musical themes around love, war or battle, passing and mourning, and finally celebration. I was able to warble a couple of songs in the mix, but the themes that cross cultural, social and economic barriers were the hits! The description and lead-ins to the themes really brought the musical pieces by the “western” and Lakota traditional music to life and home!

The second half of the concert featured two new works set by accomplished composers, the first, “Desert Wind” took my spirit soaring over the wind swept south west of the United States - I could almost feel the desert wind in the theater. The closing piece returned me home to the Black Hills of South Dakota. The piece, Black Hills Olowan - which means black hills song - was filled with every possible image the history and life of the Black Hills means to the Lakota. Who knew such incredible music could make me feel so connected to a place - mentally and spiritually. More on the composers of these two masterpiece works later in this blog.

If you are reading this, you have to do all that you can to get to the Multi-cultural center in Sioux Falls tonight (Thursday) or to Mission on Friday, Pine Ridge on Sat or Rapid City on Sunday afternoon! Don’t miss this opportunity to have music lift your spirit and vision - Maestro Delta David Gier, Barry LeBeau and Dr. Ronnie Thiez are the minds behind the Lakota Music Project - its full results yet to be seen, but off to a great start to bring some folks together throughout South Dakota through music that may not have ever joined together for an evening of anything!

American Idols and dancing stars? Who needs em when you have the great audiences and musicians of South Dakota! Flandreau, you are the Idol of the day!

By Robert Moore

Native singers, orchestra create S. Dakota sound

Styles blend in concert collaboration

Peter Harriman • pharrima@argusleader.com • May 20, 2009

The Dakota Chamber Orchestra plays its part of "Black Hills Olowan" - horns, winds and strings playing short, sharp sounds, making dense music.

How is this going to work, one wonders?

Then, introduced by a flourish of jingling bells from the percussionist, Melvin D. Young Bear answers with a melodic wail, joined by the Porcupine Singers.

The sound rushes like an avalanche, carrying an audience along with it.

It suddenly is clear the orchestra is a counterpoint, a resistant base to the Pine Ridge drum group, and the contrast shows off both musical traditions.

A listener blinks and thinks, "Wow!"

The Lakota Music Project, a collaboration four years in the making, will come to fruition this week when the Chamber Orchestra and Porcupine Singers tour South Dakota.

The impetus for this occurred shortly after South Dakota Symphony Orchestra Maestro Delta David Gier came to Sioux Falls in 2004 and began inquiring about how the symphony could do outreach unique to South Dakota.

"Early on, it became evident the issues to be addressed were Native American," he says.
Barry LeBeau, liaison officer for the United Sioux Tribes and a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, introduced Gier to Lakota music and to the prominent Pine Ridge drum group, the Porcupine Singers.

At Eagle Butte in 2007 and at Pine Ridge in February last year, orchestra musicians met with members of Lakota drum groups and listened to them play. The musicians also talked about their respective traditions.

In a previous year, members of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate also had performed a dance for orchestra musicians who played a concert on the reservation, and they invited the orchestra members to join in.

From this background, the collaborative Lakota Music Project took shape, aided by a National Endowment for the Arts grant.

The concerts across South Dakota recognize that both the orchestra and the drum group are keepers of respective musical traditions, Gier says. To that end, Ronnie Theisz, a faculty member at Black Hills State University and a member of the Porcupine Singers, suggested each group explore four themes in the first part of the concert. The themes are courtship and love; warriors; death and mourning; and joy.

During a rehearsal Tuesday at Augustana College, the drum group and orchestra began to hammer out the nuts and bolts of their collaboration. The fact that the orchestra works from printed music and the Lakota singers from an oral tradition meant the Porcupine Singers have to accommodate somewhat to the traditions of orchestra music.

But while Brent Michael David's "Black Hills Olowan" composition initially highlights distinctions between the two musical styles, there comes a point where they merge and follow the Lakota lead. The woodwinds and strings echo the lyrical keening of Young Bear, Theisz, Emmanuel Black Bear, Tim Black Bear and John Mesteth. The sound soars, seems ready to float the roof off the rehearsal room and crumble the cinder block walls.

Gier, conducting this, says to the musicians at the conclusion, "When the winds were cooking with them, that was in a groove. That was really nice."

Young Bear is delighted to have his voice and the other singers' become orchestral instruments.
"To me, I thought this would never happen. It is awesome to be part of this project. Words can't describe it," he says.

The Lakota Music Project does more than highlight the respective musical traditions on display, according to Young Bear. Listening to the orchestra has given him musical insights as to "how rhythm, melody and tone come together."

He says the collaboration is helping the Porcupine Singers lead the way to a new dimension of traditional drum group music.

Within the orchestra, the percussionists are a direct analog to the Lakota drum. In "Essays on American Indian Music," Tony Isaacs of the Indian House record label points out the drum has a sophisticated relationship to the vocal beat, preceding it and varying it slightly.

When this is written for the orchestra, "you can be misled by looking at the printed music," percussionist Craig Spangler says.

"Our role is different than it normally is," adds Bob Kramer, assistant tympanist. When they play with the Lakota drum "we're trying to make authentic sounds," he says.

As the musicians weave their respective traditions into a common music in the rehearsal, they approach what LeBeau says about Lakota music. It "can be haunting, melancholy and hair-raising in force. When melded with the same orchestral sounds, you get the feeling that you understand what the piece is saying. In Lakota, it is 'Mitakuya Oyasin,' we are all related."
What Young Bear would like South Dakota audiences to take away from the collaboration this week is this: "The healing from the heart, the healing from music. Close your eyes, put your head back and listen to the music."

The Augustana String Quartet will perform a collaborative recital with guest artists John

Friday, May 15, Larson Memorial Concert Hall, SDSU, Brookings, SD
Saturday, May 16, Kresge Recital Hall, Augustana College, Sioux Falls, SD

Both concerts are at 7:30pm, and are free and open to the public.

Program:
Brahms Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34 John Walker, piano
Schubert Cello Quintet in C major, Op. 163 Maxim Kozlov, cello

In the fall of 2007, the Augustana String Quartet was formed as a collaboration between the South Dakota Symphony and Augustana College. At that time these four individuals, who received their positions through an audition process and who consequently were strangers to one another, began an intense personal and professional life with each other. Since then they have established themselves as one of the region’s premiere chamber music ensembles. Some highlights have included the spring of 2008, when they collaborated with composer and associate principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic, John Deak. The quartet performed his concerto for string quartet and orchestra based on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Most recently, they were invited as guest artists for the Iowa International Piano Competition, were they performed with six semifinalists from around the world. This upcoming concert marks a milestone in their existence, in that it is their first fully collaborative program. They will perform the dark and introspective piano quintet by Brahms with SDSU faculty member John Walker, as well as the fantastic and celebratory cello quintet by Schubert with the South Dakota Symphony’s principal cellist, Maxim Kozlov.

The Augustana String Quartet is Christian Zamora and Justyna Lutow, violins, I-Chun Chiang, viola, and Kathryn Hufnagle, cello.

Sneak Peak: Program Notes for Brent Michael Davids' Composition "Black Hills Olowan" | Lakota Music Project Premier

“Black Hills Olowan” is a concert work for American Indian singers and orchestra that honors the Black Hills of South Dakota, and features the Porcupine Singers. In the introductory portions of “Black Hills Olowan,” the singers are integrated with the symphonic instruments, almost as if they are another instrumental section of the orchestra. However, the concluding moments of the work feature the singers as a leading voice, driving the symphony along to its rousing conclusion. The importance of the Black Hills to the original inhabitants of the land is well articulated by Dr. Ronnie Theisz:

“The Black Hills of western South Dakota and Eastern Wyoming known to the Lakota as Paha Sapa (Black Hills) and He Sapa (Black Mountains) hold a revered place in the history and culture especially of the Lakota and Cheyenne nations, but also for others such as the Mandan, Arikara, and Kiowa. For the Lakota, sacred oral tradition has preserved the significance of the Black Hills as “the heart of everything that is.” Many sites in and around the Black Hills still vibrate with geomythological significance. The 19th century confrontation with the expanding United States made the Black Hills into a flashpoint, a place of confrontation, exploitation, and conflict in military, legal, spiritual, economic, environmental, and symbolic terms. The Black Hills was taken from the Lakota in the Act of 1877, a taking found ultimately to be illegal by the United States Supreme Court a century later. The refusal to relinquish their Black Hills, guaranteed by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, has become a Lakota cause célèbre still today. The intertribal dancing song called Heart Butte Special was originally composed by the Dine singer and composer Arlie Neskahi. The widely known Porcupine Singers on a trip to the Browning Montana celebration in the early 1980s requested permission to perform and record this song which was to become one of their trademark and most popular intertribal songs” (R. D. Theisz).

“Black Hills Olowan” was commissioned by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra for a Native American tour with support of the American Composers Forum and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Sneak Peak: Program Notes for Jeff Paul's "Desert Wind" | Lakota Music Project Premier

The inspiration for “Desert Wind” comes from an atmosphere that ties together both physically and emotionally, and is largely introspective.

That atmosphere is loneliness.

Loneliness is both depicted and dealt with in the piece, and in the end the “loneliness” becomes “aloneness” which provides more opportunity for one to find beauty, comfort, and enlightenment in it—overall a very positive outlook on a landscape that appears barren and desolate on the surface. We are meant to revel in it, finding peace and even warmth inside ourselves.

I first decided to explore this idea musically after having lived in South Dakota for a year or two, before which I was in Southern California for most of my life. I was fondly remembering my various road trips that happened frequently through late high school and college, and even during my family’s move to the Midwest. The desert landscapes of the California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah interstates were always particularly poignant to me, and I was surprised to discover that the high plains and prairie landscapes in South Dakota were really quite similar (after you factor out the temperature) and that the feeling I got from the Dakotan prairies was intimately related. I came up with the piece, and was hopeful that the melody would be able to reach anyone who has had a certain intimacy with the prairie environment, including Lakota communities. I felt that the sound of my piece and the sound of traditional Lakota song, though very different, would complement each other profoundly, and have been working hard to weave and integrate the two together in my new expansion.

Formally speaking, the piece is mono-thematic, and I have sewn together a sort of consilient theme and variations, being extremely careful not to abstract the theme very much, as my intent is to maintain the singularity and clarity of the melody and atmosphere with only the most minute changes. It might be better described as a “Theme-and- Varied- Repetitions” sort of thing. I have drawn notable inspiration from the music of Neil Young, and some from Flamenco guitar music. My textures are intended to toe the line, sometimes crossing from one side to the other, between the constant and constantly changing winds (physically), and some of the feelings you might get from them, from the solemn to the invigorating, all the while maintaining the fundamental oneness beneath the variations.

Another season ends...

As we embark upon May, another season of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra comes to a close. Our final full orchestra concert concluded on April 25 with our performance of Turandot. Now we look forward to our last Chamber concert, featuring the Dakota String Quartet and Dakota Wind Quintet on Sunday, May 17 at 2:30 pm.

The 2009-2010 season will kick off at the end of September, but between now and then we will be collaborating with the Porcupine Singers from Pine Ridge for the Lakota Music Project. The Dakota Chamber Orchestra will tour five cities with the Porcupine Singers (Flandreau, Sioux Falls, Mission, Pine Ridge and Rapid City). These two groups will play for each other and with each other, focusing on cultural music that expresses four common human experiences: love, war, mourning, and celebration.

The following concerts are free and open to the public:
Flandreau - Wednesday, May 20, 7 pm - Crystal Theater
Sioux Falls - Thursday, May 21, 7 pm - Multi-Cultural Center, downtown
Mission - Friday, May 22, 7 pm - Multi-Purpose Building, SGU Campus
Pine Ridge - Saturday, May 23, 6 pm - Red Cloud Indian School
Rapid City - Sunday, May 24, 2 pm - 1st Congregational Church of Christ

Join us for the Lakota Music Project tour! We are excited to share this cultural fusion with all!