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PrintDakota Music Tour
The Healing Power Of Song
Brent Michael Davids
Courtesy Brent Michael Davids
Can art heal? That is the hope of musician and composer Brent Michael davids (Mohican). On Dec. 26, 1862, the greatest mass execution in American history occurred when 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota following the Dakota Uprising (see Nov./Dec. 2006 issue). This tragic event still haunts the history of Minnesota and its Native and non-Native residents.
It is Davids' aspiration to help smooth the still-jagged edge of this tragedy with a month-long series of musical concerts across Minnesota. The Dakota Music Tour is a 90-minute response to the 1862 events in Minnesota. Each concert will feature traditional American Indian music, Western classical music, and music that merges the two forms together.
"It is my hope that the production will offer a musical response to the terrible events of 1862 that took so many Dakota and American lives," notes Davids. "By musically honoring the Dakota people and their intersection with the Western world, all citizens can benefit from a deeper understanding of our shared living history."
The orchestral music, composed by Davids, will be performed by the Mankato Symphony Orchestra under the direction of conductor Kenneth Freed. The production will also feature the Santee Dakota Maza Kute Drummers, actor and musician Cochise Anderson (Chickasaw/Choctaw), and Manny Laureano, the principal trumpet for the Minnesota Orchestra.
The tour will begin in Mankato on May 22 (3 p.m., Mankato West High School), then move on to Morton on May 28 (1 p.m., Lower Sioux Community Center), to Granite Falls on May 29 (1 p.m., Prairie Edge Casino), and to Winona on June 4 (noon, at the eighth annual Great American Homecoming at Unity Park).
The show will consist of at least five principal movements, beginning with a lustrous fanfare of trumpets and trombones interspersed with soft refrains from Davids' mahogany flute in a composition titled "Honoring Kwa'apoge." Next up are the remarkable Maza Kute singers and drummers with a traditional Native song, followed by "People of the Standing Stone," a trumpet melody by Laureano, accompanied by a water drum and dark orchestral tones. A drum group and orchestral movement titled "Black Hills Olowan" falls just before intermission. The second half of the show is an extended work, the fiery "Powwow Symphony," with Davids on his signature crystal flute, Anderson acting as a powwow emcee, and the full orchestra.
Davids comes to this project with more than 35 years of performing and composing challenging and novel music for live performances and film, blending Eurocentric classical music techniques with Native music traditions. He has performed across the nation and received commissions from many major art groups and musical companies, ranging from the National Symphony Orchestra and South Dakota Symphony Orchestra to the New Mexico Symphony, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Joffrey Ballet, Kronos Quartet, the Kennedy Center and many others.
Ticket prices will vary from $5 to over $20, depending on your age and the venue. They should be available at each venue. Details: 507/625-8880 or mankatosymphony.com.
