JACK LANGDON

is an experimental composer, filmmaker, and writer who was born in 1994 and is a citizen of the sault ste. marie tribe of chippewa indians.

nindaa gichi-neyaashiing

[archive and documentation of past performances can be found here]

UPCOMING EVENTS

11.1-6.25

Jack Langdon (bibigwan)
workshop for Olivia Shortt’s The Museum
of Lost and Found: Gaakaazootaadiwag
Indigenous Creation Studio
Mississauga, ON

11.9.25

Jack Langdon (bibigwan), Sara Constant (flute), and Olivia Shortt (saxophone)
House Show
Toronto, ON

11.14.25

premiere of ‘seven spirals’ for bibigwan and miniature pipe organ
NE/X: A Festival of Indigenous Performance

Northrup-King Building
Minneapolis, MN

TBD

premiere of “Cheap Dream” for harpsichord by Justin Wallace
Britton Recital Hall, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI

premiere of “Gravissima” for solo tuba by Jenny Bement
Phoenix, AZ

premiere of “Mystery Spot” by Fonema Consort

BIOGRAPHY, CV, CONTACT

PHOTO BY HANNAH KRUSE

Reading Andrew Blackbird
for narrating flutist

work in progress

demo recording

Andrew Blackbird was an Ottawa historian who was born in Waganagisi (L’Arbe Croche, MI) and is most well known for his 1887 book History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan. This text is notable as one of the earliest histories of native life in and around Michilamackinac written in English by a native author. The book features descriptions of everyday Anishinaabe life as well as stories illustrating relations with missionaries and settlers. My Ojibwe forebears lived contemporaneously with Blackbird across the Mackinac Straits, approximately ten miles North, at Pointe Aux Chenes in current Moran Township, MI.

In this work, I invoke the genre of native american storytelling and flute performance by reading selections of Blackbird’s history, accompanying myself on the bibigwan (the Ojibwe wooden flute). In both text and music, I embrace the abstract, the fragmentary, and the unclear to complicate legibility, representation, and moral didacticism.

Category
Composition, Performance