Raven Chacon (born 1977) is a Diné

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

, musician and artist. Born in

Fort Defiance, Arizona Fort Defiance ( ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Apache County, Arizona, Apache County, Arizona, United States. It is also located within the Navajo Nation. The population was 3,624 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. History ...

within the

Navajo Nation The Navajo Nation (), also known as Navajoland, is an Indian reservation of Navajo people in the United States. It occupies portions of northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. The seat of government is located in ...

, Chacon became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his '' Voiceless Mass'' in 2022. He has also been a solo performer of

noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music include ...

and worked with groups such as Postcommodity.

Life and career

Raven Chacon was born in 1977 in

, US within the

. He attended the University of New Mexico, where he obtained his BA in Fine Arts in 2001, then received an MFA in music composition from the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

in 2004. He was a student of James Tenney, Morton Subotnick, Michael Pisaro, Wadada Leo Smith and Christopher Shultis. Chacon's visual and sonic artwork has been exhibited widely in the U.S. and abroad. His room-sized sound and text installation, ''Still Life, #3'' (2015), was exhibited in the ''Transformer: Native Art in Light and Sound'' exhibition at the National Museum of the American Indian, New York. His collective and solo work has been presented at Sydney Biennale,

Kennedy Center The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as the Kennedy Center, is the national cultural center of the United States, located on the eastern bank of the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Opened on September 8, ...

, the

Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932; the first biennial was held in 1973. It is considered ...

, documenta 14, Adelaide International, Vancouver Art Gallery, ASU Art Museum, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, the

Heard Museum The Heard Museum is a private, not-for-profit museum in Phoenix, Arizona, United States, dedicated to the advancement of American Indian art. It presents the stories of American Indian people from a first-person perspective, as well as exhibitio ...

, Chaco Canyon, and Performance Today. Chacon also performs in the groups KILT with Bob Bellerue, Mesa Ritual with William Fowler Collins, Endlings with John Dieterich, and collaborations with Laura Ortman. In 2016, he was commissioned by Kronos Quartet to compose a work for their ''Fifty For The Future'' project. Chacon serves as Composer-in-Residence with the Native American Composers Apprenticeship Project. In 2012, he was awarded a Creative Capital Visual Arts grant. In 2014, he was honored with a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation National Artist Fellowship in Music. In 2018, Chacon was awarded the Berlin Prize by the American Academy in Berlin. In 2022, Chacon became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, which he received for his composition '' Voiceless Mass''.

Postcommodity

Chacon was a member of the Native American art collective, Postcommodity, with whom he has developed multimedia installations which have been exhibited internationally. Other members include Cristóbal Martínez, Kade L. Twist, Steven Yazzie and Nathan Young. In 2017, as part of Postcommodity, Chacon created the multimedia project, ''...in memoriam'', in Edmonton in 2017, curated by Ociciwan Contemporary Art Collective.

Personal life

Chacon lives in

Albuquerque, New Mexico Albuquerque ( ; ), also known as ABQ, Burque, the Duke City, and in the past 'the Q', is the List of municipalities in New Mexico, most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico, and the county seat of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Bernal ...

, and is married to Candice Hopkins, a Tagish curator. His sister Nani Chacon is a muralist.

Awards and honors

Chacon has received numerous awards and honors for his work, including the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for Music, an American Academy in Berlin Prize (music composition), a Creative Capital award (visual arts), a

United States Artists United States Artists (USA) is a national arts funding organization based in Chicago. USA is dedicated to supporting living artists and cultural practitioners across the United States by granting unrestricted awards. Mission The organization' ...

fellowship (music), a Joan Mitchell Foundation fellowship, a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, among others. Chacon received the inaugural Mellon Foundation Artist-in-Residence fellowship for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at

Colorado College Colorado College is a private college, private liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell in his daughter's memory, the college offers over 40 majors a ...

. In October 2023, Chacon was named a MacArthur Fellow.

Partial discography

* ''Voiceless Mass'' (with Present Music and Ariadne Greif) ( New World Records, 2025) * ''Inhale/Exhale'' (w/ Carlos Santistevan and Tatsuya Nakatani) ( Other Minds Records, 2022) * ''An Anthology of Chants Operations'' (Ouidah, 2020) * ''Horse Notations'' (Cimiotti Recordings, 2020) * ''Crisalide Fossile'' (w/ OvO) (Bronson, 2016) * ''Your New Age Dream Contains More Blood Than You Can Imagine'' 12"LP (w/ Postcommodity) (Anarchymoon, 2011) * ''Kitchen Sorcery'' (w/ Bob Bellerue) (Prison Tatt Records, 2011) * ''At the Point Where the Rivers Crossed, We Drew Our Knives'' 12"LP (Anarchymoon, 2010) * ''Black Streaked Hum'' (Lightning Speak/Featherspines, 2009) * ''Overheard Songs'' ( Innova, 2006) * ''The Incredible 17000 km Split'' (split w/ Torturing Nurse) (8K Mob, 2006) * ''Jesus Was a Wino'' (w/ Jeff Gburek) (Herbal Records, 2005) * ''Still/life'' (Sicksicksick, 2004) * ''Meet the Beatless'' (Sicksicksick, 2003)

Publications

* ''For Zitkála-Šá'' Toronto: Art Metropole. Los Angeles: New Documents;. 2022. * ''OEI #98-99: Aural Poetics'' Stockholm: OEI. 2023.

References

External links

*
Fellow Spotlight: Raven Chacon
at the American Academy in Berlin
2022 Pulitzer Prizes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chacon, Raven 1977 births Living people People from Fort Defiance, Arizona Navajo artists Navajo musicians Native American composers 21st-century classical composers California Institute of the Arts alumni 21st-century American composers American male classical composers American classical composers 21st-century American male musicians 20th-century American artists 20th-century Native American artists 21st-century American artists 21st-century Native American artists Pulitzer Prize for Music winners MacArthur Fellows Navajo Nation people