Albuquerque composer, artist Raven Chacon wins 2022 Pulitzer for large ensemble work

May 10—Raven Chacon discovered he was the talk of the town via a text message.

And it was music to his ears.

The Albuquerque-based chamber music composer and noise artist was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for music for a large ensemble work he composed in late 2021 specifically for an organ in the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee.

Voiceless Mass, was described by the Pulitzer Prize website as "a mesmerizing, original work for organ and ensemble that evokes the weight of history in a church setting, a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting visceral impact."

The Pulitzer came as a welcome surprise to Chacon — a 44-year-old member of the Navajo Nation whose phone was filled with the news via text messages from friends.

"It's really nice to be recognized for the chamber music I compose," he said in a phone interview Monday.

He added: "That's one part of my practice I'm not always working in but definitely something that's been a longtime important part of my practice, to compose for other musicians and collaborate. To make music together."

Chacon was born in Fort Defiance, Ariz., and grew up both there and in Albuquerque. His father is from Northern New Mexico.

He attended University of New Mexico as an undergraduate and later received a Master of Fine Arts from California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita, Calif.

Chacon said his first experience with music stemmed from free piano lessons he received as a child. From there, he became interested in composition and later in "noise music," a genre described as the expressive use of noise within music.

"While I didn't stick with being a classical piano player, it gave me an appreciation and understanding for how other instruments work," he said of his musical background. "The noise was a completely different trajectory: trying to make my own instruments, and them sounding really noisy and abrasive."

Voiceless Mass, featuring an 11-musician ensemble, was commissioned by Wisconsin Conference United Church of Christ, Milwaukee-based Plymouth Church UCC and ensemble group Present Music.

Chacon said the work took about eight months to compose as he familiarized himself with the specific Nichols & Simpson organ at the cathedral.

"Every organ has their own set of pipes, their own tones," he said. "Every building is going to react differently to different organs."

In a statement to the Pulitzer jury that judged his work, Chacon wrote although the piece uses the word "mass," it doesn't feature any vocals. Instead, it focuses attention on how the sound of instruments interact with the space of the cathedral itself.

"In exploiting the architecture of the cathedral, Voiceless Mass considers the futility of giving voice to the voiceless, when ceding space is never an option for those in power," he wrote.

Chacon has performed across the United States and received numerous awards and fellowships, including the United States Artists fellowship in music and the Pew Fellowship. From 2009 to 2018, he was a part of the southwestern Native American artist collective Postcommodity.

Each year he teaches students from the Navajo, Hopi and Salt River Pima-Maricopa reservations to write string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprenticeship Project in Arizona.