Sharon Burch

Last updated

Sharon Burch of Navajo and German origin is a founding advisor of First Nations Composer Initiative . Sharon Burch is an organizer, composer, teacher of general music, author of educational music-books, singer (English and Navajo language) besides being a recording artist.

Contents

Life

Born to a Navajo mother and a German father, Burch was raised in the traditional Navajo culture in New Mexico and spoke only the Navajo language until she began school. After finishing high school in California, she attended Navajo Community College in Tsaile, Arizona and later the University of New Mexico. [1]

Burch's music is the contemporary expression of traditional Navajo ways and living. Many of her songs are in Navajo language and capture the sacredness of Mother Earth, Father Sun and the importance of family and place to the Diné.

Burch's third album, “Touch the Sweet Earth” (published on Harmony Ridge [2] ) was awarded the 1995 INDIE Award in the “North American Native Music” category[ citation needed ]. Burch performs regularly at folk festivals, fairs, schools, universities and has appeared in concert at the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Burch has also performed in Japan [ref].

In 1998, Burch performed a concert at the 32nd Smithsonian Folklife Festival at the National Mall, Washington D.C. [3]

Discography

Albums
Contributing artist
Books

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hopi</span> Native American tribe

The Hopi are Native Americans who primarily live in northeastern Arizona. The majority are enrolled in the Hopi Tribe of Arizona and live on the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona; however, some Hopi people are enrolled in the Colorado River Indian Tribes of the Colorado River Indian Reservation at the border of Arizona and California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sharon Isbin</span> Musical artist

Sharon Isbin is an American classical guitarist and the founding director of the guitar department at the Juilliard School.

New Mexico is a state of the Southwest United States. The state has music traditions dating back to the ancient Anasazi and Pueblo people, Navajo, Apache, and the Spanish Santa Fe de Nuevo México; these old traditions are found in both their original folk forms and as a modern folk genre known as New Mexico music.

Navajo music is music made by the Navajos, mostly hailing from the Four Corners region of the Southwestern United States and the territory of the Navajo Nation. While it traditionally takes the shape of ceremonial chants and echoes themes found in Diné Bahaneʼ, contemporary Navajo music includes a wide range of genres, ranging from country music to rock and rap, performed in both English and Navajo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Seeger</span> American folk musician and folklorist

Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who mainly played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, harmonica, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary recordings, and performed in more than 40 other recordings. He desired to make known the caretakers of culture that inspired and taught him. He was posthumously inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in 2018.

Jerod Impichchaachaaha' Tate is a Chickasaw classical composer and pianist. His compositions are inspired by North American Indian history, culture and ethos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis W. Ballard</span> American classical composer

Louis W. Ballard was a Native American composer, educator, author, artist, and journalist. He is "known as the father of Native American composition."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kevin Locke (musician)</span> American musician, storyteller, and educator (1954–2022)

Kevin Edward Locke was of Lakota descent of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Anishinaabe of White Earth. He was a preeminent player of the North American Indigenous Flute, a traditional storyteller, cultural ambassador, recording artist and educator. He was best-known for his hoop dance, The Hoop of Life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Mirabal</span> Musical artist

Robert Mirabal is a Pueblo musician and Native American flute player and maker from Taos Pueblo, New Mexico.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red Earth (band)</span>

Red Earth is an American rock band from Albuquerque, New Mexico which has released three independent albums.

Sukay is an Andean folk music band.

Pura Fé (Tuscarora/Taino) was born Pura Fé Antonia "Toni" Crescioni) is singer-songwriter, musician, story teller, instructor, seamstress, artist and a founding member of the Native Women's a cappella trio Ulali.

Chrisavgi "Kristi" Stassinopoulou is a Greek singer, lyricist, and fiction writer. A native Athenian, she is an internationally known artist of the world music circuit. She is accompanied by composer, arranger, co-producer and multi-instrumentalist Stathis Kalyviotis. Their music combines traditional Greek rhythms and sounds, Byzantine vocal lines, rebetiko music, psychedelic rock, ambience and electronica.

Terence Patrick Winch is an Irish-American poet, writer, and musician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Louise Defender Wilson</span> Native American storyteller and educator

Mary Louise Defender Wilson, also known by her Dakotah name Wagmuhawin, is a storyteller, traditionalist, historian, scholar and educator of the Dakotah/Hidatsa people and a former director working in health care organizations. Her cultural work has been recognized with a National Heritage Fellowship in 1999 and a United States Artists fellowship in 2015, among many other honors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracy Hamlin</span> American singer and song writer

Tracy Yvette Hamlin is an American singer - songwriter, owner of the Sweet Jazz Concert Series, CEO of the independent label, DMH Records, and host of Our Tv Network’s “The Tracy Hamlin Show”. After a stint as lead vocalist for smooth jazz group Pieces of a Dream, Hamlin now performs as a solo artist internationally. Hamlin has performed as a background vocalist for Gloria Gaynor. Tracy has also arranged vocals for Gaynor’s 2013 album entitled We Will Survive. Tracy Hamlin is a former Vice President of the Washington DC Grammy Chapter and formerly served on the Recording Academy’s National Board of Trustees. Most recently, Hamlin has been appointed Vice Chairperson for Loudoun County’s Visit Loudoun Board of Directors. Hamlin was previously Secretary, Treasurer, and Vice Chairperson of the Visit Loudoun Tourist Board in Loudoun County Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Mexico music</span> Genre of folk music that originated in New Mexico

New Mexico music is a genre of music that originated in the US state of New Mexico. It derives from Pueblo music in the 13th century, and with the folk music of Hispanos during the 16th to 19th centuries in Santa Fe de Nuevo México.

Alice Williams Cling is a Native American ceramist and potter known for creating beautiful and innovative pottery that has a distinctive rich reds, purples, browns and blacks that have a polished and shiny exteriors, revolutionizing the functional to works of art. Critics have argued that she is the most important Navajo potter of the last 25 years.

Indigenous metal is heavy metal music played by indigenous peoples of various colonized regions. Bands may play music from across the metal spectrum, though most center indigenous themes, stories, or instruments. Groups with indigenous members are sometimes considered to play indigenous metal regardless of the thematic content of their music.

Joyce Lee "Doc" Tate Nevaquaya was a Comanche flute player and painter from Apache, Oklahoma. He is known for his contribution to the Native American flute music. His efforts in learning how to make Comanche flutes and play as well as compose contemporary Comanche flute music is considered to have saved the declining art from being lost completely. However, he said he considered himself a painter first, and painting was his primary art throughout his life.

References

  1. Burch, Sharon (Winter 2001). "Giving a New Voice to Navaho Tradition: Interview with Sharon Burch". Grace Millennium. Retrieved 18 July 2020.
  2. "Sharon Burch". Résume. Retrieved 2009-12-04.
  3. Fox, Larry (June 26, 1998). "Weekend's Best". Washington Post. Retrieved 29 April 2016.