My work as a composer is rooted in the idea that sound and story are inseparable. Music, unlike other forms of language, is active and incapable of a lie. Its intentions and motives are carried in vibration itself. When you listen, you hear not only structure but conviction.
Myth is a kind of code that distills collective memory into symbols and archetypes that can be reinterpreted in new times and places. But myth also circulates all around us in daily life. Some myths sustain us, but others constrain us, like the falsehoods I grew up hearing: “All the real Indians died off.” Or later, when I began to compose: “Native songs can’t be classical.” These myths operate as invisible ceilings, designed to suppress voices like mine, and breaking through them becomes essential in reclaiming identity and bringing music fully to life.
One of my recent works, REQUIEM, is the first requiem written in the Cherokee language. Latin requiem means “rest,” and in Catholic tradition refers to music for a funeral mass. Because Cherokee has no direct equivalent, I titled the piece Analenisgvi (a-na-le-ni-s-gv-i, ᎠᎾᎴᏂᏍᎬᎢ), which translates to “Revival.” This name carries a dual meaning: the revival of the Cherokee language itself and the revival of those who came before us, whose memory continues to bring meaning to our lives. To compose REQUIEM was to step into dialogue with the European sacred tradition while also insisting that Cherokee voices belong within the canon of concert music, despite the myths that would restrain them. Writing a requiem in Cherokee became both an act of radical reclamation and a gesture of human solidarity, uniting grief, resilience, and memory across cultures.
This fall, on October 1, I will premiere my newest orchestrations as part of my fellowship: Oklahoma Woman Quartet, a series of compositions for string quartet and voice. These pieces emerge from my perspective as a modern, post-assimilation Cherokee woman navigating the complexities of artistic identity. The quartet is not only music but also a meditation on layered histories: Native, settler, feminine, and modern, colliding and reshaping one another in the present moment.
Myth, for me, is unfolding in real time. Every family story becomes myth when it carries the weight of generations. Every act of remembering is an act of storytelling that reshapes the world. In Greco-Roman mythology, the god Hermes is a trickster who unsettles order and redefines boundaries. I recognize something of that role in myself: confounding expectations, questioning the frameworks of Western art music, and revealing truths by placing Cherokee experience at the center. In this way, Hermes becomes unexpectedly relatable across cultures, reminding us that myth is a shared human language of identity.
Being a Public Fellow with the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities allows me to bring this perspective into dialogue with a wider community. Tulsa is a city shaped by the layered intersections of Indigenous nations, African American communities, and immigrant and diasporic groups including Latinx, Asian, Jewish, Middle Eastern, and many others where the work of myth-making remains an evolving process. Through sound, I hope to contribute to that living, breathing story.
Ultimately, my compositions are less about resolution than about resonance. In this way, my music becomes a kind of myth for the present: a story sung in the old language, carried into a future where we might listen differently, and more deeply, than before.