At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the world around him went quiet and still, composer Raven Chacon went to work.
Inspired by the silence of days in lockdown, he started writing ‘Voiceless Mass’, a 16-minute work for ensemble and pipe organ. Chacon, 44, a member of the Navajo Nation living in Albuquerque, wanted to use the sounds of the organ, accompanied by winds, strings, and percussion, to explore themes of power and oppression.
“During the pandemic, we were able to focus on some of the cries of people who felt injustice around them,” he said in an interview. “Lockdown was this time of silence where there was an opportunity for those sounds and cries to come forward.”
On Monday, “Voiceless Mass” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. It was an unexpected honor for an artist who has worked across genres – music, video, printmaking – to shed light on the struggles facing indigenous peoples.
Chacon said he wasn’t aware he had won the award until shortly after the announcement on Monday, when friends started texting him.
“Apparently they’re not calling you,” he said.
“Voiceless Mass” premiered on November 21, 2021 at the annual Thanksgiving concert by Present Music, an ensemble dedicated to contemporary music. It was commissioned by the ensemble and by the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ and Plymouth Church in the United Church of Christ.
Chacon has described the work as an exploration of the “spaces in which we gather, the history of access to these spaces and the land on which these buildings stand.” He wrote “Voiceless Mass” especially for the Nichols & Simpson Organ at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee.
“In exploiting the architecture of the cathedral, ‘Voiceless Mass’ considers the futility of giving a voice to the voiceless, while relinquishing space is never an option for those in power,” Chacon said.
The Pulitzer Commission praised the piece as a “hypnotic, original work for organ and ensemble that evokes the weight of history in an ecclesiastical setting, a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting visceral impact.”
It is the latest in a series of works by Chacon that examine the injustices of indigenous peoples. He has produced graphic scores dedicated to indigenous women composers; footage of silent clashes between indigenous women and the police during protests near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, in 2016; and a video installation, filmed on Navajo, Cherokee, and Seminole land, featuring women singing the stories of locations where massacres or relocations have taken place.
He also wrote the music, together with Du Yun, for the opera “Sweet Land,” a meditation on colonialism that premiered in 2020.
Chacon said he hoped the award would help bring “Voiceless Mass” to a wider audience.
“I hope it gets carried out more,” he said. “It’s always been a challenge to make this kind of work accessible to people who can’t enter these spaces, either because of financial constraints or because they don’t feel like they’re the audience for classical music.”
