Ana Alonso Minutti, associate professor of musicology and ethnomusicology at the University of New Mexico, presents "Noising the Desert: Land and Memory in Raven Chacon’s Work" in this installment of the 2025-26 THEME lecture Series.
Abstract
Description: Composer and installation artist Raven Chacon (Fort Defiance, 1977) has developed a body of work shaped by the sonic landscapes of the New Mexican desert. This presentation traces how his engagement with noise amplifies place and activates personal and cultural memory, positioning noising as a borderlands practice that unsettles colonial histories.
Biography
Ana Alonso-Minutti is Professor of Musicology and Associate Chair of the Department of Music at the University of New Mexico. She is the author of Mario Lavista: Mirrors of Sounds (Oxford University Press, 2023), recipient of the Robert M. Stevenson Award from the American Musicological Society, and coeditor of the journal Twentieth-Century Music.
Series Background
THEME: A colloquium of UW faculty and students of Theory, History, Ethnomusicology, and Music Education held on select Friday afternoons during the academic year.