In this KSUT Conversation, Tami Graham speaks with Gary Gackstatter, the composer of the upcoming Symphony Chaco Chamber Music: A Journey of the Spirit, featuring special guests R. Carlos Nakai and Christina Martos.
The performance takes place on Saturday, October 25, at Canyon of the Ancients Guest Ranch in Sky Village.
Gackstatter shares the background of how Symphony Chaco evolved from an idea for a sabbatical to a full-fledged symphony orchestra, elevating the history and feel of Chaco Canyon National Historic Park.
Interview transcript
Tami Graham, KSUT: This is Tami Graham with a KSUT conversation with Gary Gackstatter, the composer of the upcoming Symphony Chaco Chamber Music. A Journey of the Spirit with very special guests R. Carlos Nikai and Christina Martos. That event takes place on Saturday, October 25th at the Canyon of the Ancients Guest Ranch at Sky Village. Tickets and information at Symphony Chaco Chamber Music eventbrite.com. Gary, as I mentioned, are the composer of it, and it's had a pretty interesting life over the past several years with a few different iterations, including a performance at Fort Lewis College at the Community Concert Hall, again about a year and a half ago with a full symphony and R. Carlos Nikai. And share with us a little bit about the origin story of Symphony Chaco for those who are totally unfamiliar with it, and how this upcoming performance became part of that story.
Gary Gackstatter: Well, long ago and far away, I was granted a sabbatical from my college, and I had to fill out an application that showed how it would benefit myself, my students, my college, my community, and I really had no ideas and I was told I wasn't going to get it. Anyway, it was the first time I had applied there and many other people from my department were also applying who had applied before. So I didn't really have much hope, and I kind of put it off and the deadline came up and I was lacking ideas. And I've been going out to Chaco for over 20 years now, almost 30 years. And in that area all my life, I started having these dreams where I would wake up and I didn't know where I was. I thought I was in Chaco Canyon, and these kept occurring over and over again.
And one morning, just a few days before that application was due, I came up with this idea. I knew I wanted to write a symphony. I didn't have the seed of inspiration for it, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is it. So I put this proposal together where we would bring in R. Carlos Nakai, include the orchestra, the choir, all the performing groups, bring in archeologists, pottery makers, all this stuff, and turn it into a huge weekend. And I was pretty excited about it. And then I remembered that this is kind of ridiculous for a guy from St. Louis area to be writing a symphony about a place that nobody out here ever heard of about Ancient in the Southwest. Well, they approved it, and I was really excited then. And then I thought, now what? Well, I've done a lot of work with Paul Winter in the past. We commissioned two symphonies from him that were performed out in the Flint Hills. They were composed by his cellist, Eugene Friesen. And I asked him, how did you do this? How did you write these symphonies about the grasslands out there? And he just said, don't plan anything. Just go out there and listen.
So I had one semester to prepare. I read everything I could about Chaco, watched everything, and a cell fairs movie was very, very influential on me, as well as Craig Child's book, house of Rain. And I had a semester called r Carlos Naka. I've been listening to his music since the eighties, and he agreed to help me with it. I'd never met him or talked to him before, but we had a two hour phone conversation and he decided that he would join us on this little adventure. And now it's one of his favorite pieces to perform. He's integral to this and very, very needed to make this more authentic. I didn't want it just to be Mr. White man from St. Louis writing a symphony. I wanted it to be authentic and have Native American voices in it. And he was a really great guide. Plus I had to learn how to write music for the Native American flute.
I didn't want to just have it all improvised on his part. I wanted somebody that could read music. And in the Native American flute world, those people are few and far between, and he kind of invented a way to read music on the Native American flute. So he has a whole bunch of different flutes he has to play because we play in all these different key signatures and time signatures and oh man, it's just a thrill. His tone r Carlos's tone, I mean, there's a lot of native blue players out there now recording and releasing records, but his tone is just individualistic to him. You can always recognize him, just his no choice. And he does a lot of chanting in this as well, and really compliments our singer, Christina Martos from the Santa Fe area, and she was the one that performed it with us in Durango. So that's when Ming and Gary came to that concert and said, Hey, let's do this out at Sky Village. And I said, yeah, I got a chamber arrangement of this that I did for the Chamber Music Festival in Abcu a few years ago. And so we put it together and here we come. We'll be there on Saturday.
Graham: Wow. Well, isn't it amazing when looking back at all the ways that this has come together for you from just the glimpse of a thought of what this might look like to today, where you're doing several different iterations in different parts of the country? So along with R. Carlos Nakai and Christina Martos, there's a chamber orchestra, so there'll be a couple of other performers.
Gackstatter: Yeah, we have six people accompanying. There's going to be some woodwinds, a cello percussionist, and a pianist
Graham: All taking place for folks in an outdoor venue. That's absolutely stunning. I mean, I was thinking about it, Carrie. It'll be evening and the stars are just incredible out there because you're so far out there in McElmo Canyon, away from the nearest city is probably Cortez, and that's what, 40 minutes away or something. So just an incredible environment. Anything else people should expect from this performance or what can they look forward to that you haven't? I mean, it's so kind of mystifying really thinking about what this is going to sound like and feel like out at Sky Village.
Gackstatter: It's a very spiritual piece of music. While I was doing the research and studying up just to be able to get into it, these melody and I was living out there, I pulled a camper out there and was writing, just getting my thoughts together. And these melodies would appear to me and I'd whistle 'em into my phone and just so I could forget 'em. I wanted to remember 'em, but I need to go on. And so I would drive in once a week to Fort Lewis College and write these melodies down. I wasn't even starting about thinking about the movements or anything like that. And then when I got back here, I started, it's time to start writing the music and all those melodies came to me in the exact order of the movements of the Symphony.
I have no idea how to explain how this music came to me. It was like taking dictation. It's the easiest process I've ever gone through writing, and it was amazing. Everything about this, all the synchronicities, all the coincidences that had to happen. I met all these Native American people, archeologists, astronomers, along the way, park rangers. It's just been an amazing journey. And that's kind of the message of this whole piece is it's a spiritual journey. We're all on a spiritual journey, and it reflects the Pueblo idea of how to take care of the earth, how to take care of each other, be connected to nature, and be connected to the spirit world. And that's one thing that RC was very, very helpful with this. So yeah, it's a mystical piece of music, that's for sure.
Graham: Wow. Well, Gary, thanks so much for sharing some of your creative process and sort of the scene and unseen collaborators, as it were for making this really remarkable piece of music and project possible.
Gackstatter: If I could add one thing, this is going to have animated graphics, graphic photography with it. So that's going to be projected out there while the music's playing. It kind of dances along with the music, and that's done by Cindy and Carl Clark, and they'll be there. So that accompanies every performance.
Graham: Oh, wonderful. Truly a multimedia experience.
Gackstatter: Yes, very much so. Plus being out under the stars.
