Glacier Symphony hosts celebration of Native American Heritage Month through music and art

One of Glacier Symphony’s most culturally rich and art-filled shows of the season is coming to the Wachholz College Center on Nov. 18 and 19.

The Glacier Symphony Orchestra, conducted by John Zoltek, will present multiple powerful orchestral pieces, including a premiere of a new Montana composition “The Hunting Moon,” and additional layers of concert entertainment during Vision Spirit Land. 

Many Native artists are featured in Vision Spirit Land and include University of Montana professor and Salish Kootenai poet, Heather Cahoon, Blackfeet artist and Montana’s 2023 Teacher of the Year, Keven Kickingwoman, and Missoula-based 3D-collage artist, Monica Gilles-BringsYellow. New Mexico-based world flutist, Suzanne Teng, will be performing with the orchestra. 

Glacier Symphony will also be bringing in Westwater Arts from Los Angeles, California, an immersive visual concert experience company that will provide visuals of Native peoples, sacred natural spaces and National Parks choreographed to the concert music. 

The inclusion of the photo-choreography by Westwater Arts was an integral part of planning this concert program and art-music synergy, meant to add a very relevant and beautiful visual experience for the audiences. 

Performances are Saturday, Nov. 18 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Nov. 19 at 3 p.m. at the Wachholz College Center on the Flathead Valley Community College campus.

The program will begin with two ceremonial songs sung by Montana Blackfeet artist and 2023 Montana Teacher of the Year, Kevin Kickingwoman, to welcome the audience and give thanks and blessings to the concert. The first piece played by the symphony will be “Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The song will be accompanied by photo-choreography, projected on special screens above the orchestra, by Westwater Arts, called "Visions," and include historic images of Native Peoples of various regions of North America, including Montana, photographed by Edward S. Curtis. This will be the first of three such pieces with projections during the concert. 

Ticket pricing for adults starts at $39, college students $15 and children under age 18 start at $12. Sponsors include Glacier Bank, Whitefish Mountain Resort, Freedom Bank, and the Kalispell Grand Hotel. 

For more information, call (406) 407-7000 or for tickets visit glaciersymphony.org

THE WORLD premiere of “The Hunting Moon” by Glacier Symphony artistic director and conductor, John Zoltek is featured during the concert. This new work is a poem cycle for speaker, flute soloist and orchestra that is based on the poetry of Montana Native American poet and professor Heather Cahoon, who is a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. 

The music incorporates spoken poetry from Cahoon’s work and includes a Native American flute solo performed by New Mexico-based flutist, Suzanne Teng. The song contains 11 separate movements which incorporate nearly 15 poems and additional excerpts from Cahoon’s published works. 

Zoltek has used these poems as an inspirational springboard to create a colorful and unique orchestral work that is atmospheric and dynamic. 

“The Hunting Moon is my artistic response as a composer of European ethnicity to the evocative image world of Heather Cahoon’s poetry and my own experience living in this beautiful area we all now call home,” Zoltek said. “I am honored to work with Heather on this special project and I thank her for being receptive to this idea, lending me the use of her poems to set to music, and sharing her thoughts and advice.”

The poems are rich in natural imagery and speak to Native American spirituality, wildlife, reservation living, and Flathead Valley scenery. 

Cahoon said it was an honor to know her poetry inspired Zoltek to respond in his art form and create a concert. 

“I can hardly wait to hear — and to feel — my poems reinterpreted as music, as a literal symphony of vibrational frequencies that enter the ear as well as the rest of the body,” Cahoon said. “I’m also looking forward to hearing the Salish words that Maestro Zoltek has written into the performance. It’s going to be quite powerful to hear the language that has been spoken in this area for thousands and thousands of years and I’m so pleased that Maestro Zoltek has incorporated it into the performance.”   

The solo flutist represents the musical voice of the poet, which will be paired with the narrated poems during the concert. 

Suzanne Teng, who plays a wide variety of world flutes, including the Native American flute, excels in improvisation, an attribute that will be showcased in “The Hunting Moon.” The poetic text will be projected above the orchestra so that the audience can follow along with the narration and make connections between Zoltek’s composition and Cahoon’s text. 

After intermission, the concert continues with two more photo-choreography projection pieces by Westwater Arts: “Reflections of the Spirit,” with music by Samuel Barber and “National Park Suite” set to music by Antonin Dvorak. The photography and film clips will feature spaces sacred to the First Peoples of the Americas and a brilliant overview of our shared National Parks. The concert will conclude with the final movement from Dvorak's ninth symphony.

A pre-concert and intermission art exhibition will feature the artwork of Monica Gilles-BringsYellow, who created artwork specifically for the Vibes and Visions 41st season theme. 

AHEAD OF the performances, Glacier Symphony and the Dick Idol Gallery in Whitefish host a preconcert soiree for the opening of an exhibition of rising star Monica Gilles-BringsYellow, the artist behind Glacier Symphony's 41st season theme artwork. The event is Nov. 15 at 5:30 p.m. 

Guests will enjoy a private performance by Vision Spirit Land guest artist, and flutist Suzanne Teng, wine and tasty bites provided by The Salty Calf, and an opportunity to mingle with the inspiration behind Maestro Zoltek's new composition, poet Heather Cahoon. 

Tickets are limited, with proceeds benefiting the Glacier Symphony, Orchestra, and Chorale's concert and youth music programming. Tickets are $100 each.