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Raven Chacon will turn the city into a stage with 'Tiguex.' Find out where you can catch the music.
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“Tiguex,” a musical and art composition by Raven Chacon, is set to take over the city of Albuquerque from its highest point, to the river and beyond.
It is an event that spans the city, featuring 20 overlapping movements, all documented on a lithograph that serves as both a map and a score. The city-wide musical movement will take place on Saturday, Sept. 27, and is a collection of areas where Chacon has performed across the city.
“That’s anything from playing concerts out in the desert to putting on concerts on rooftops and under bridges, and out in the desert again,” Chacon said.
Chacon, born in Fort Defiance, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation, won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music for his composition “Voiceless Mass,” the first Native American to win the award. He graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor of Fine Arts and his work has been featured at numerous museums around the country.
Chacon worked closely with the Tamarind Institute, which printed the lithographic piece of the movement. The piece will be available for viewing at the institute prior to the event.
Alongside connecting spots across Albuquerque, he is also gathering people he has worked with over the years from various music communities.
“It brings together musicians from the University of New Mexico, from various experimental music scenes in the town, and a lot of important sites in our city,” Chacon said.
All the musicians are local to the area, including a cellist, a mariachi ensemble and heavy metal drummers. Chacon said he wanted to focus on telling the story of the city through these local performers from various communities he has collaborated with over the years.
“The composition and the work is about the city and its people,” Chacon said. “So there’s no reason to import anybody from elsewhere for the composition.”
“Tiguex” begins at the city’s highest point, Sandia Peak, with a trumpeter playing. Other movements include a cello performance floating down the Rio Grande and singers on horseback on the Bosque Trail.
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Chacon said the map and performances are interconnected in the story they tell.
“Not only is it the score and a map of where one can go to experience the performances, but at the same time, it’s telling the story of the place we call Albuquerque,” Chacon said. “And embedded in that score and map is not just that story as it is today, but the history of the city throughout time.”
Chacon hopes that even those unfamiliar with the performance will catch parts of the music being played.
“There will be a lot of audience who will be aware of this composition and this performance on this day,” Chacon said. “But I also anticipate most of the city will encounter something out of the ordinary that day, and they’ll sit for a moment and listen.”
Diana Gaston, Tamarind Institute director, said that Chacon is a part of the institute’s Frederick Hammersley Artist Residency, a two-year program where artists can produce works with the institute.
Gaston said that when meeting with him initially, he had a connection to the city that he wanted to celebrate, and thus the idea for the lithograph and event was born.
“He has such a personal connection to Albuquerque ...,” Gaston said. “Having a project with us here at UNM, was meaningful.”
Chacon said he took the opportunity with the residency to bring to life the project of new and experimental compositions that he had been envisioning for years.
“I’ve been working on this for a long time. I’ve been dreaming it a long time,” Chacon said. “And what eventually was the big motivator was the Tamarind Institute commissioning me to make a new print, and this print became the map and score.”
Gaston said that lithography provided the perfect medium to build Chacon’s vision piece by piece, and that it offered a new opportunity to the institute.
“It’s kind of unusual for us to work with a performing artist position,” Gaston said. “And so we love those kinds of challenges that help us to extend or expand our thinking about lithography and how it can participate in an artist practice.”
The lithograph is a physical score of the 20-part performance that will be happening around the city, Chacon said he wanted everything to fit on the map.
“There’s 20 compositions, and so within that document is some of the music notes, some of the paths that musicians walk while they’re performing,” Chacon said. “Some of the details of how they interact with various sites, and also other kinds of other symbols that relay instructions to the musicians that’ll be performing those pieces.”
Valpuri Remling, Tamarind master printer, worked closely on the project, printing out the lithographs that would be on display at Tamarind. She said it was wonderful to see the prints being executed.
“Coming together with that vision is one of the major parts about collaboration that is so magical,” Remling said. “Starting to sort of see something together that can’t be described with words, but we’re all kind of working towards that common goal.”
“Tiguex” can be followed on the website tiguex.com and on KUNM 89.9FM, which will include accompaniment by Chacon’s childhood piano teacher.
