Already had to edit: Finally able to announce most of my 25-26 season. There are several things I’m not allowed to announce just yet including some roles that I originated. Very excited to sing and play all of these performances and especially to be able to make a living mostly singing recitals this season.
Yesterday before the performance Delwin Elk Bear Fiddler kindly invited me to join him in playing some cedar flute improv and boy was it fun and beautiful! More and longer collaborations to come! Thanks for the video @kig.wizard_ !
Guess it’s a “Daddy” sort of summer. Singing two amazing “dad” roles, one pretty great and one not so great. I will be reprising a role I created in @jerodtate ‘s Loksi’ Shaali’ - the role of Inki’, Loksi’’s father with @wilmingtonconcertopera at the @operaamerica conference this week and later in the summer I’ll be singing Giorgio Germont in La Traviata with @paintedskyopera in Oklahoma City
Part of the cadenza third movement from Kiegan Ryan’s Cedar Flute concerto played on my @highspiritsflutes g minor crow flute (ebonized walnut) and the pocket flute (in my pocket) in aromatic cedar. Goes attacca into the exciting fourth and final movement.
Kiegan wrote this movement as something of a love letter to me and this cello/flute duet to honor our love for one another. So very lucky to have such heart and ear in one man, whom I happen to love.
I think the most beautiful movement, but also the one that is the most scary to me. The finger holes on the d minor flute that this is played on are tiny compared to the other flutes and can be tricky to hit cleanly depending on my hands temperature. But the legato lines are so stunning and seamless that there’s no margin for error.
Last part of movement 4 of Kiegan Ryan’s @thecherokeenation groundbreaking Cedar Flute Concerto! What a joy filled experience to play with these fine musicians.
Each year I miss you in different ways. This year I wished so many times you could know and (I’m 100% sure) would be fast friends with @kig.wizard_ . I can hear you two laughing together and it warms my heart. I’ve had you with me in all the ways I’ve pushed forward my work in Indigenous classical music, I think about how you used to drive me every Monday 3.5 hours one way to youth symphony in the 8th grade just so I could experience what it was like in the orchestra, so now everytime I perform with an orchestra I carry you with me, like today, with the 5 mystical songs and Kiegan’s Cedar Flute Concerto. I will always love you, mama, Lou Rena Williams Billy.
