At the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, when the world around him turned quiet and still, the composer Raven Chacon went to work.
Inspired by the silence of days spent in lockdown, he began writing “Voiceless Mass,” a 16-minute work for ensemble and pipe organ. Chacon, 44, a member of the Navajo Nation who lives in Albuquerque, got down to use the sounds of the organ, accompanied by winds, strings and percussion, to explore themes of power and oppression.
“Through the pandemic, we were capable of concentrate on a few of the cries of people that were feeling injustices around them,” he said in an interview. “Lockdown was this time of quietness where there was a chance for those sounds and cries to emerge.”
On Monday, “Voiceless Mass” was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music. It was an unexpected honor for an artist who has worked across genres — music, video, printmaking — to shine light on the struggles facing Indigenous people.
Chacon said he didn’t realize he had won the prize until shortly after the announcement on Monday, when friends began texting him.
“Apparently they don’t call you,” he said.
“Voiceless Mass” had its premiere on Nov. 21, 2021, on the annual Thanksgiving concert of Present Music, an ensemble dedicated to contemporary music. It was commissioned by the ensemble and by the Wisconsin Conference of the United Church of Christ and Plymouth Church within the United Church of Christ.
Chacon has described the work as an exploration of the “spaces by which we gather, the history of access of those spaces, and the land upon which these buildings sit.” He wrote “Voiceless Mass” specifically for the Nichols & Simpson organ on the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in Milwaukee.
“In exploiting the architecture of the cathedral, ‘Voiceless Mass’ considers the futility of giving voice to the voiceless, when ceding space isn’t an option for those in power,” Chacon has said.
The Pulitzer committee praised the piece as a “mesmerizing, original work for organ and ensemble that evokes the burden of history in a church setting, a concentrated and powerful musical expression with a haunting visceral impact.”
It’s the most recent in a series of works by Chacon exploring the injustices suffered by Indigenous people. He has produced graphic scores dedicated to Indigenous female composers; recordings of silent standoffs between Indigenous women and the police during protests near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, in 2016; and a video installation, filmed on Navajo, Cherokee and Seminole lands, featuring women singing the stories of web sites where massacres or removals have taken place.
He also wrote the music, together with Du Yun, for the opera “Sweet Land,” a meditation on colonialism that premiered in 2020.
Chacon said he hoped the prize would help give “Voiceless Mass” a broader audience.
“I hope it gets performed more,” he said. “It’s all the time been a challenge to make this sort of work accessible to individuals who can’t enter these spaces, either due to monetary barriers, or simply because they feel they aren’t the audience for classical music.”
