Raven Chacon explores sound in new, wildly experimental ways
Chan Centre, Vancouver New Music, and the Belkin present works by the multidisciplinary artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation
Raven Chacon makes some of his own instruments out of materials such as antlers and bone.
Vancouver New Music presents Parallel 03: Endlings (Raven Chacon and John Dieterich) + collaborators on November 28.
Chacon participates in Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, about Indigenous resurgence, at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, to December 6.
The Music of Raven Chacon is streaming via the Chan Centre Dot Com Series until December 21.
IN A WORLD that loves to label, the music of Raven Chacon is hard to categorize. Brashly experimental, the artist from the Navajo Nation’s Fort Defiance is influenced by chamber music, heavy metal, and Diné songs his grandfather would sing. He creates graphic scores using symbols and explores acoustic sounds through electric systems, playing with feedback. His compositions might include home-made instruments of bone, glass, or antlers; accidental field recordings; or guitar pedals with a dying battery.
Three Vancouver organizations are bringing his distinct, colourful work to local audiences. He’s part of Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts, about Indigenous resurgence, at the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery to December 6.
Starting November 20 at 7 pm, the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts’ Chan Centre Dot Com Series will present digital recordings of three of Chacon’s compositions: American Ledger by the UBC Symphonic Wind Ensemble; La’ts’aadah by violist Marina Thibeault; and Horse Notations performed by flutist Paolo Bortolussi, violinists Jasper Wood and David Gillham (violins), violist Marina Thibeault (viola), cellist Eric Wilson (cello), and percussionist Sacha Levin. (Like all fall 2020 performances as part of the series, access to Chacon’s works will be available until December 21,)
On November 28 at 1:30 pm, Vancouver New Music presents Parallel 03: Endlings + collaborators. Chacon and Albuquerque-based guitarist-composer John Dieterich (Deerhoof) make up Endlings, and they’re joined by six local musicians and sound artists. They arranged and recorded over four months of isolation earlier this year, using cross-platform and anonymous methods, and the resulting album continues to evolve.
“It's a bit difficult to explain at this moment, because the project is constantly shape-shifting,” Chacon tells Stir. “Overall, the project has been a process of anonymous equitable generative composition and recording. The Dropboxes and Google Translates and Zoom-Skypes are our instruments to bend. We weren't able to be in the same room, so we will bring you to this neutral space that we met in, which in one form is a vinyl LP, and in another is a web-based instrument anyone can play, and make their own alternate universe of the album.”
He’s excited to see the approaches that the UBC musicians from UBC will take with his chamber pieces” “Their outdoor performance of American Ledger #1 is among my favourites of any I have heard of my works,” says Chacon, who’s also a visual artist and has presented work at the Whitney Biennial, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, the Kennedy Center, and more.
When the pandemic took firm hold in the spring, Chacon was in Los Angeles for the premiere of a Manifest Destiny opera called Sweet Land that he spent two years writing. After two weeks of performances, the month-long run was cancelled, by which point he was on his way to perform in Melbourne. He had to turn right back around for the long trip back to New Mexico, but a final performance of Sweet Land was filmed and is now available at sweetlandopera.com. Adapting to the digital realm has been difficult, he says, but not without its unexpected rewards.
“I feel that I don't listen to as much music today, as most of those opportunities to listen were at live in-person concerts,” Chacon says. “Those were the pauses in life, the breaks away from the computer screen, the time that I listened most carefully. I would attend whatever I could, take chances. I am not sure why that is harder to do with streaming concerts, but my guess is that we associate screens with work.
“So maybe in contradiction to that, I still find myself seeking to see online and streaming concerts and the possibility to see things in stage performance that you might not be able to otherwise: a close-up of a singer or a violinist's fingers; the view from behind the percussionist; faces, even behind masks.”
He’s not a fan of setting up his equipment in his house or studio to broadcast that scenery to people wanting to hear his music at home. This summer, he and Dieterich did an Endlings performance in his backyard, Chacon behind a cactus and Dieterich positioned on a pile of gravel. He also performed in a series called Principles of Non-Isolation in Audio, where improvisers were paired up but not seen by audiences at home—”as if a group of friends are sitting in the dark watching a show, but can comment in real time,” Chacon says. “Normally talking to your friend about the music during such a concert would be frowned upon. I love that.”
Raven Chacon’s graphic score for American Ledger #1.
For more information, visit Vancouver New Music, Chan Centre Dot Com Series, and Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.
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