Indians go for Baroque

Baroque, Native musicians exchange notes in PabloMusicians from the Montana Baroque Music Festival shared the stage with American Indian drummers, dancers and a flutist in an effort to educate the audience about the two cultures through music at the People’s Center in Pablo on Wednesday.

“I feel the problems we’re having in the world today are because we don’t understand each other’s cultures and I think maybe that was the impetus why the idea came to me,” said Jean Morrison, treasurer of the Sanders County Arts Council and one of the main organizers of the event.

Baroque is a style of music that came about in the years between 1600 and 1750, and includes works by many famous composers such as Vivaldi, Bach, Handel and Pachelbel.

Though many people heard about the cultural exchange at the fifth annual Montana Baroque Music Festival and came to see more baroque music, nothing literally moved the audience as much as when Native Heart, an American Indian family drumming group of 15 years, preformed its songs.

“I loved it. I’ve never been around this kind of music before and to be around it was thrilling,” said Lori Presthus, a baroque cellist from Portland, Ore. “There’s something about the spontaneity of the music; the vocalizations were uninhibited like it was coming from somewhere deep.”Comment:  Forgive the bad pun in the title, but I had to do it. ;-)