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.

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

UPCOMING EVENTS

3.8.26

Jack Langdon (bibigwan), Luke Martin (tone generator), Jeff Kimmel (clarinet), Graham Stephenson (trumpet)
Frequency Series at Constellation
Chicago, IL

3.17.26

performance of “Fish Laying Egg in a Circle” by Brightwork Ensemble
Tuesdays at Monk Space
Los Angeles, CA

5.14.26

performance of new work for clarinet by Zach Good
Bienen School of Music, Northwestern University
Evanston, IL

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