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  • Home
  • What we do
    • Who We Serve
    • Children's Program
    • SMB During COVID
    • Artistic Innovation >
      • 2022 Julie Leven Artist Project: Voices of Hope
      • Voices From The Land
      • Florence Comes Home
      • Water for My Soul
      • Women Composers Project
    • Concert Experience
    • Impact
    • Concert Calendar & Programs
  • Who we are
    • Our Story
    • Mission, Vision, Values, and Cultural Equity Statement
    • Artists
    • Administrative Staff
    • Board of Directors
    • Internship Program
  • Donate
    • Donate to the Mission of SMB
    • Donate when you shop online
    • In-Kind Donations & Community Partnerships
    • Foundation, Corporate, and Individual Donors
  • Get Involved
    • Events >
      • 2023 Eudaimonia Social Action Partnership
      • Past Events
    • Host a House Concert
    • Stay In Touch
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Employment/Musician Opportunities
  • Press & Awards
    • Press
    • Awards
    • Social Innovation Forum
  • Video
    • Videos about SMB
    • Performances by SMB
  • Links
    • Citizen Artists Working for Social Change
    • Transformational Power of Music
    • Anti-Racism Resources
  • SMB Blog

Voices From The Land
An Indigenous Composers Project


​Shelter Music Boston is honored to collaborate with the Grand Canyon Music Festival and the 
Native American Composers Apprentice Project (NACAP) to present: 

Voices From The Land
Tutsqwat angk Taatawi, My Land Songs (Hopi translation)
Náhastsaan biyiin, Songs of the Land  (Diné, or Navajo, translation)

Voices From The Land  showcases living indigenous composers.
Click HERE for the complete video playlist.
A new performance video will be released every Monday from March 1, 2021 to May 17 2021.
​Subscribe to our Youtube channel to be notified of each new performance or
click here to view all videos in the playlist.

​
This project acknowledges that Shelter Music Boston musicians perform for homeless individuals and people in recovery on the ancestral land of the Pawtucket, Massachusett, and Wampanoag people. With this collaboration, Shelter Music Boston seeks to create empathy for Indigenous people and share knowledge of the ancestral and tribal land of modern day Massachusetts and modern day Arizona. Throughout
Massachusetts there are 50,000 residents with at least partial Indigenous ancestry, some from tribes outside of the region.
¹​​

More than 300,000 residents of Arizona have Indigenous ancestry.

The twelve virtual concerts in this project, presenting music written by living Indigenous composers of
Diné (Navajo), Hopi, 
Laguna, Salt River Pima-Maricopa, 
San Carlos Apache, and Tewa ancestry,
offer and respect the musical stories and human emotions that can bring together marginalized and traumatized, and all, populations. 
These virtual concerts, recorded in 2021 by SMB musicians, take place only on the SMB YouTube Channel. 
A new concert will be added weekly from March 1 to May 17, 2021. 
Please subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive every performance.

​

Special Thanks
Thank you to Clare Hoffman and the Grand Canyon Music Festival, Diné composers Raven Chacon and Michael Begay, and all of the young indigenous composers who have made this project possible. We hope the music will provide dignity, creativity, and passion to those who listen to these performances, particularly individuals reached through the Shelter Music Boston 26 partner organizations, and will respect all involved. Please reach out to Shelter Music Boston with questions and comments.

Click here to learn more about the native american composers apprentice project

Sheet Music

For those interested in adding this wonderful music written by living Indigenous composers to their libraries and performance repertoire, a set of seven “best of” scores and parts including works from our "Voices From the Land" partnership are now available. Click here to purchase! Pieces included in the set include:
"Black Serenity" by Greg Cortez
"Chiarpscruo" by Michael Begay
"Forest Fire" by Trenton Begay
"Illusion" by Sage Bond
"To a Friend" by Jessie Bilagody
"Nuclear Crystal" by Xavier Ben
"Colors of Sadness" Skyler Bilagody

For information regarding sheet music for a specific piece, please contact Clare Hoffman at info@grandcanyonmusicfest.org.


Geography

There are 574 federally recognized Indigenous nations in the United States, each with their own histories.
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²
​Click here to find out whose tribal land you live on.³​
​
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Historical map of where Voices From The Land composers live
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Modern map of where Voices From The Land composers live
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Map of Massachusett and Wampanoag Lands
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This map locates the organizations in Greater Boston collaborating with Shelter Music Boston to provide concerts to homeless individuals and people in substance misuse recovery. All are located on the traditional land of the Pawtucket, Massachusett, and Wampanoag tribes. Click on the map to zoom in to SMB partner organizations in Greater Boston.

   Voices From The Land Composers
                                        Youth Composers

Xavier Ben - Diné                                    Sialik King - Salt River Pima-Maricopa
Gemal Benallie - Diné                                                 Arika Morningstar - Hopi
Gregory Cortez - Diné                    Christina Shupla - Hopi, Tewa, and Laguna
Sage Bond - Diné and San Carlos Apache            
     Dennelia Stevens - Diné
Cina Curley - Diné                                                                  Thylia Yazzie - Diné
Damien Jones- Diné 

                                                         
       To learn more about these youth composers, listen to the the podcast:
                 
Original Score, an Indigenous perspective on music.​
SMB Artistic Director Julie Leven and Grand Canyon Music Festival Artistic Director Clare Hoffman discuss the Native American Composers Apprentice Project, life during the pandemic in the Diné  (Navajo) Nation, and the impact of learning to write a string quartet on Indigenous youth.
NACAP Faculty Composers
​Micheal Begay - Diné
​
Raven Chacon - Diné​

Raven Chacon, whose piece Invisible Arc SMB cellist Rhonda Rider performed for SMB shelter and recovery center audiences in 2018, is the artist who connected SMB directly to the Grand Canyon Music Festival and the Native American Composers Apprentice Program.

Click here to learn more about the NACAP Faculty Composers.
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Languages of Indigenous People

Click the links below to learn to say something in the languages of the:
Diné, or Navajo

Hopi
​
Wampanoag
Information about all Indigenous languages of the Americas can be found HERE.
More about indigenous composers in collaboration with classical music organizations

¹As reported by The Boston Globe, February 10, 2021.
²Indigenous peoples maps: Sturtevant, William C, and U.S Geological Survey. National atlas. Indian tribes, cultures & languages: United States. Reston, Va.: Interior, Geological Survey, 1967. Map. Retrieved from the Library of Congress
³Thank you to the The Native Land Team for the land acknowledgement map enabling SMB audience members to learn about indigenous lands.  Please note: The Native Land Team recommends that the map is not to be used as an academic or legal resource. Sourcing data on Indigenous territories is a delicate process therefore the map should be used with an understanding that areas may be incorrect according to localnations and individual interpretation.  The Native Land Team are in a constant state of research and adjustment to the map in effort to remain as accurate as possible, however errors may exist.
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