Concerto for violin and Native flute

World violinist Arvel Bird unites classical and Native roots for “life-defining” new CDGoing where few musicians have gone before, multi-award winning world violinist Arvel Bird has just released the long-awaited new CD Tribal Music Suite: Journey of a Paiute (Concerto for Violin and Native American Flute). Described by Bird as his “soul’s song,” it has been thirty four years in the making and is a benchmark in the artist’s life.

The new CD is classical in form and concept with the central instrument being Bird’s violin, but has an exciting twist--it brings the power and drama of the Native drum and flute to the symphony orchestra, and will be performed with Native American singers, dancers, and soloists. The project returns Bird to his roots in classical music (he won a music scholarship to Arizona State University and trained classically for eleven years), but also allows him to incorporate all that he has learned since leaving that world: most notably the genres of Native American, Celtic, bluegrass, country, roots, world, New Age, and more. It will open up a whole new arena of performance possibilities for him with orchestras all over the world who want to experience cultural diversity in their concert programs. The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra will debut the piece live in May, 2009.

While the blending of Native American and classical music has been done before, this is the first time it has been done by a musician who comes from the classical world, but whose heritage is Native American.Comment:  Given all the postings I've done on classically trained Native composers, I doubt this last claim is true.

For more on the subject, see Classical Chickasaw Composer and First Native Concerto.