'You go all in': Diné composer from Chinle wins Pulitzer for music

May 31, 20220

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Courtesy photo | Clare Hoffman Raven Chacon works with Native students at Grand Canyon Village in Arizona. Since 2004, he has served as composer-in-residence for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project.

WINDOW ROCK - Diné musician, artist and educator Raven Chacon's long list of achievements and honors now includes the esteemed Pulitzer Prize for music, awarded on May 9 for his ensemble composition titled "Voiceless Mass."

The composition is a rousing, discordant, and sometimes eerie invocation of the unheard – past and present – whose voices have been silenced.

The Pulitzer Prize Board called the piece "a mesmerizing, original work... that evokes the weight of history in a church setting, a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting visceral impact."

https://nativenewsonline.net/arts-entertainment/you-go-all-in-dine-composer-from-chinle-wins-pulitzer-for-music