Grandmother Moon - Iethi’sotha Ahsonthenéhkha Karáhkwa Salt Bay Chamberfest скачать в хорошем качестве

Grandmother Moon - Iethi’sotha Ahsonthenéhkha Karáhkwa Salt Bay Chamberfest

Commissioned and Performed by Salt Bay Chamberfest (2023) Susie Park and Sean Lee, violins; Oliver Herbert and Wilhelmina Smith, celli Composed by Dawn Ieri’hó:kwats Avery Dedicated to Jan Kahehti:io Longboat As part of the 2023 Salt Bay Chamberfest theme to honor sacred women stories, I immediately thought of the Haudenosaunee stories of our Grandmother Moon. I was fortunate to participate in moon ceremonies brought back after 200 years by Mohawk elder and cultural specialist, Jan Kahehtí:io Longboat. On the full moon, Indigenous women from all over Ontario gather around her fire on Mohawk territory to sing songs, offer tobacco and thank Iethi’sotha Ahsonthehnéhkha Karáhkwa. In the Kaniènkéha (Mohawk) tradition, we are grateful that Grandmother Moon moves the ocean’s tides and lights the nighttime sky with her adornment of stars. She is an elder to women all over the world, watching over us and our children’s births. We measure time as her face changes through each cycle of the 13 moons. As I was composing this work, I thought of the Indigenous grandmothers with their breadth of experience and commitment toward keeping traditions, communities and families alive. As elders pass on, I have seen great sadness and strength in these remaining knowledge keepers. Their roles and responsibilities along with the emotion that I imagine they carry, are reflected in this piece, through syncopated rhythms, soaring melodies, various dances, harmonic ostinati, layered thematic material and a song in the style of a Haudenosaunee women’s song. One can hear the Indigenous soundscapes of the drum, rattles, ancestral spirits, sky world and waters depicted through harmonics, col legno battuto ricochet (bouncing the wood of the bow on the string), chromatic patterns, and repetitive bass notes. The musicians are asked to recite the words for Grandmother Moon as a means of honoring her and invoking the ancient vibration of the Kaniènkéha language. The work ends with the gentle sounds of the ancestral grandmothers walking amongst the stars toward our grandmother moon.