The Buckley Recital Hall is our primary performance hall on campus where the space serves as an opportunity to hold events of wide-ranging musical variety from student-led (student thesis) concerts or outside artists. Recently, I attended the Indian Country with opening words and a song by Larry Spotted Crow Mann. Indian Country is a special type of band mostly because of the background and story behind the creation and performance of the band. I was definitely excited to attend and learn more about them, and something to note is that the musicians are all Native American. The engagement between performers and the audience is very different than your “normal” performance dynamic (ex: orchestra performance).
The performance began with Larry Spotted Crow Mann, a citizen of the Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusetts and an award-winning poet cultural educator, Traditional Story Teller, tribal drummer /dancer, and motivational speaker involving youth sobriety, and cultural and environmental awareness. He started off by setting a humorous tone with the audience making a couple of jokes about the history of colonialism in America as a form of healing. He adds traditional drum rhythm and says “it is the heartbeat of our land.” The audience became more drawn and participated in his performance. He instructed the audience to sing a three-part section in unison as a form of performer/audience participation. It is usually hard to pull these kinds of things but I would say the audience did pretty well.
The Indian Country had a very smooth transition into their performance. There was an introduction piece before the worded introduction. Every musician walked on stage individually as the backing track played. The drummer held the beat down, then the trumpetist followed, a couple of measures later the bassist came in, then the violinist, and lastly the singer. The band was introduced by their storyteller, Rena Priet, a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation and a background as a Washington State Poet Laureate and Maxine Cushing Gray Distinguished Writing Fellow. She did a phenomenal job of telling a story for every song that was personally composed by every musician on the stage.
The band includes Delbert Anderson, the trumpetist, who creates Diné inspired musical pathways. Anderson preserves his cultural music by building a foundation of new Diné melodies and fuses them through jazz, jam, and funk. Vocalist, drummer, and guitarist, Charly Lowry, is a member of the Lumbee/Tuscarora People. She projected her powerful vocals in her song called Brown Skin.
The song is introduced as a form of uplifting women with Brown Skin and the struggles we go through in a society that has Westernized ideals. Mali Obomsawin, the bassist and composer of Sweet Tooth, a song that was present throughout the concert is one to remember about the remarks she makes. The song was introduced to be “offensive” to Americans, but simply portrayed the frustration of stolen land. She is from Abenaki First Nation at Odanak. Nokosee Fields (Osage), a member of the Osage, Creek, and Cherokee Nations presented a long fiddle dance that was said to be played for hours and hours on end.
As a violinist, he shared his background with a foundation in orchestral music (Western music) and the questions he has brought up to reshape his identity and participation in Indian Country.
I am glad Amherst College invites performers from various music genres to come and shine a light on music that the majority is not usually exposed to. Indian Country had a wonderful performance and connection with the audience and school. Keeping up with the newsletter is a good way to become exposed to these types of events. Also, a little tip, if you go to the box office an hour early you are able to get a free ticket!