JACK LANGDON

is a musician, filmmaker, and writer with concentrations in experimental music, minimalist documentary, cultural criticism, and political economy.

born in 1994, enrolled in sault ste. marie tribe of chippewa indians

nindaa gichi-neyaashiing

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

UPCOMING EVENTS

8.7.25

Jeff Kimmel (clarinets), Jack Langdon (bibigwan),
Stephan Haluska (harp), & Adam Shead (percussion)
Comfort Station
Chicago, IL

8.8.25

Jack Langdon (bibigwan)
Marmalade
Chicago, IL

8.21.25

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

10.12.25

Jack Langdon (bibigwan)
The Whistler
Chicago, IL

BIOGRAPHY, CV, CONTACT

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