Raven Chacon Makes Noise
As Zócalo Presents His Work in ‘How Do We Hear America?,’ the Composer Shares His Liner Notes on Composition, U.S. History, and the Los Angeles Music Scene
Raven Chacon has been making noise, literally and otherwise, since he was a youngster growing up in New Mexico. Fascinated by instruments of all kinds (those he’s bought and those he’s built), the 45-year-old Diné composer and artist has spent a lifetime studying the sounds things and people make, and creating experimental performances that build upon that noise, melodious and otherwise, to make listeners think about the places they inhabit: physical, spiritual, artistic, and intellectual.
Today, Chacon’s music is having a moment. In 2022, his composition for church organ and ensemble …
