Tag: choteau Montana

Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya 

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Trailer for Bring Them Home. (if you aren’t able to play- please click here.)

I recently attended the Seattle International Film Festival where I saw Bring Them Home/ Aiskótáhkapiyaaya, a conservation documentary film about the reestablishment of the American bison, also known as buffalo, on ancestral territory of the Blackfeet nation near Browning, Montana. The film highlights the history of the buffalo, and how the species was nearly wiped out in the 19th century. The film also points to the many ways the history of the buffalo mirrors the epic history of the Blackfeet people, and how the success of the wild herd has, in turn, uplifted the Blackfeet community.

The film, narrated by Academy Award-nominated Blackfeet/Nez Perce actor Lily Gladstone, was co-directed by Blackfeet siblings Ivan and Ivy MacDonald along with Daniel Glick. The musical soundtrack includes traditional singing, rapping, and contemporary arrangements mixing indigenous singing with modern orchestral accompaniment. I especially enjoyed the inspiring stories of the Blackfeet people who worked on the project, along with the magnificent cinematography of the buffalo roaming, and sometimes, galloping along the Rocky Mountain front. What a thrill! The area showcased in the film is about 70 miles northwest of Choteau, Montana, where I am from.

If you get a chance to see this movie, I wonder if you’ll shed a tear, as I did, when you watch the buffalo thunder toward the wide open space when they are released into the wilds of Montana under the big Montana sky at the end of the film. For more information bout the film here click here.

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Heart and Place

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I’m delighted  to announce the launch of a new program, Heart and Place: Stories of the Westward Expansion told through music and narrative.  This project feels like coming home, as I grew up in rural Montana.  Choteau, Montana, to be precise, population 1800.
My early music experiences in that small town and have fueled my career as a music educator/ musician.  Some of those experiences include  singing in choirs, playing in band, studying piano, playing for church, acting in musicals, and to driving to the next small town for voice lessons. This program brings it all home.
I’ll be launching the program in Seattle on Oct. 14 and will be taking it to Montana to perform at the CM Russell Museum Oct. 26, 7:00, as well as several Great Falls area schools.
 The story of the West is epic, and while I cannot focus on everything,  I’ve chosen certain aspects to highlight including the music of the Overland Trail, the early frontier settlements, and the  Northern Cheyenne Courting Flute as taught to me by Jay Old Mouse of Busby, Montana. The performance includes solo piano music, singing, guitar, and demonstrations on the fiddle and the Northern Cheyenne Courting Flute.

“COURAGE IS BEING SCARED TO DEATH, BUT SADDLING UP ANYWAY.”   ― JOHN WAYNE

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For the Love of Music- A February Wrap Up

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Ready to go out!
Rob Ickes and Trey Hensley at Wintergrass
Great hand position from one of my students.

That it’s an honor and a privilege to exchange smiles, soul, and heart directly with the people in front of you. ……. and apply your trade humbly (or not so!) as a piece of a long spirited chain you’re thankful to be a small link in.  From Bruce Springsteen’s Autobiography, Born to Run

I just caught my breath today and reflected on the past month. For the love of music!  Music, a celebration of humanity,  links us to the past and gives hope for the future.  I’m grateful to my students, teachers, and  family for a life in music. In reviewing music events of February, I’m reminded that from Brahms to bluegrass, from opera to  classical sonatas, music explores the spectrum of human emotions including love, loss, joy, yearning, hope, despair, frustration, and excitement. It’s all there,  no matter what the genre.

This is what February looked like:

  • taught 120 private lessons in my studio
  • taught 6 preschool music classes
  • taught a group class in my studio for students playing for Washington State Music Teacher’s Adjudications
  • spent a day in Shorecrest High School as a guest artist teaching students to dance the Salsa and sing Cuban songs
  • participated in a voice adjudication with one of my students
  • saw my daughter, Ruby,  make her  Benaroya Hall debut with the Roosevelt Orchestra
  • attended Angelo Rondello’s inspiring concert of contemporary piano music at the Benaroya Recital Hall as part of the Seattle Music Exchange Project
  • traveled to Mount Vernon to attend a concert of Leider of Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Johannes Brahms
  • attended  Seattle Opera’s production  of Katya Kabanova By Leoš Janáček
  • attended Wintergrass in Bellevue-  a premier Bluegrass Festival where I saw  Flatt Lonesome, The Turtle Island String Quartet and so much more!  (They played an arrangement of Bob Dylan’s Along the Watchtower, it floored me)
  • read Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography,  Born to Run

The highlight of the month, of course, was seeing the Bynum, Montana  School featured in a CBS news story.  I grew up  in Choteau which is down the road a few miles .  In 2010, I spent a day at this school  as a visiting musician.

Indeed, we all should start the day with a little singing and a little dancing. If you need some inspiration, here’s Bruce!