Delta David Gier conducts the Creekside Singers and members of the South Dakota Symphony in Derek Bermel’s “Lakota Refrains” [Photo credit: Dave Eggen/Inertia/South Dakota Symphony] The topic of my latest “More than Music” program on NPR is the South Dakota Symphony’s Lakota Music Project. The last military engagement between United States troops and Native … [Read more...] about The Lakota Music Project vs. “Rootlessness” Today
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Native America and American Music on NPR: “A Battleground”
This Hamms Beer commercial, which I vividly remember from childhood and our brand-new black-and-white TV, signals “Indian music” with a steady tom-tom beat. The tune (and its tom-tom) adapts the Dagger Dance in Victor Herbert’s opera Natoma. The words – “From the Land of Sky Blue Waters” – reference a once popular concert song by Charles Wakefield Cadman. Both Herbert’s opera … [Read more...] about Native America and American Music on NPR: “A Battleground”
“Shostakovich in South Dakota — A Manifesto for the Future of American Classical Music”
My “manifesto for the future of American classical music,” in the current issue of The American Scholar, attempts in 7,000 words to present a viable blueprint for change. My main point of reference is a contextualized performance of Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony last February by the South Dakota Symphony – which I write “may plausibly be considered the most … [Read more...] about “Shostakovich in South Dakota — A Manifesto for the Future of American Classical Music”
“Drastically revising our idea of who a music director is” — The South Dakota Symphony on NPR
The Creekside Singers performing with the South Dakota Symphony “There’s just a tremendous amount of caution, a tremendous amount of groupthink, in the orchestra world. So to see an orchestra really out on its own, forging its own identity, and bringing its audience along with it is just extremely impressive – even more impressive than I anticipated.” That’s Alex Ross, … [Read more...] about “Drastically revising our idea of who a music director is” — The South Dakota Symphony on NPR
“Never before has the perseverance of historical memory been more inspirational — or more necessary”
Following up on my NPR story about the Lakota Music Project, I write today for “Persuasion” online: In South Dakota, Bishop Scott Bullock of Rapid City wrote [of Pete Hegseth’s insistence on the heroism of American soldiers who slaughtered Lakotas at Wounded Knee in 1890]: “If we deny our part in history we deepen the harm. We cannot lie about the past without perpetuating … [Read more...] about “Never before has the perseverance of historical memory been more inspirational — or more necessary”