The Music of Raven Chacon

A digital production available online only, presented by the Chan Centre

Watch online from Nov 20 at 7pm PT. Flexible pricing, $0 – $20. 

Read about the virtual experience here.

Brilliantly inventive and unabashedly experimental, the music of Raven Chacon invites a living dialogue between composer, performer and listener. With a practice that hovers at the intersection of visual art, installation and contemporary classical music, this award-winning artist from the Navajo Nation’s Fort Defiance uses conceptual graphic scores to dip into colours and timbres from across the spectrum of sound. Influenced by everything from heavy metal to the traditional Diné songs sung by his grandfather, Chacon’s compositions range from string quartets to a harbour symphony for a group of docked ships with fog horns. He has exhibited and performed at Whitney Biennial, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, 18th Biennale of Sydney, The Kennedy Center and more.

The Chan Centre will present digital recordings of three of Chacon’s compositions: American Ledger performed by the UBC Symphonic Wind Ensemble led by Rob Taylor; La’ts’aadah performed by violist Marina Thibeault; and Horse Notations performed by Paolo Bortolussi (flute), Jasper Wood and David Gillham (violins), Marina Thibeault (viola), Eric Wilson (cello), and Sacha Levin (percussion).

"I don’t quote Navajo music in any of my work. But there are a few instruments I use that might recall some of the music from where I live. One of them is a whistle made out of a bone, that can only play a few pitches... High pitch is something I really like. It might be so high up that you can’t discern what the line is. At that frequency, it’s kind of eliminating things like volume and pitch. I’m interested in that, in what happens when I eliminate parameters of music"

Raven Chacon

To be filmed at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts in October 2020.

This virtual event is presented in collaboration with UBC’s Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery and the UBC School of Music as part of Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts.