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
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