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Park Avenue Armory’s Making Space Public Programming series will continue on Friday, May 30th with Lenapehoking, an evening of chamber music by internationally celebrated Indigenous composer, musician, and educator Brent Michael Davids (Mohican/Munsee-Lenape). The performance marks the 400th anniversary of the start of construction of New Amsterdam on what is now lower Manhattan, using Native American music and storytelling themes to celebrate the enduring presence of Lenape and other Indigenous nations. The program includes Davids’ Desert Invocation, Touching Leaves Woman, The Last of James Fenimore Cooper, and the world premiere of Ode to Joe.
“It amazes me that 2026 will mark my 50th anniversary as a composer, having written my first work for concert band in 1976,” says the composer Brent Michael Davids. “Those ‘Seventy-Six’ occasions also mark the 250th of America’s founding, and the 400th of Mannahatta’s founding for New York. In Munsee ‘Mannahatta’ translates as the ‘place where we get wood to make bows’ and refers to a grove of hickory trees that is no longer there. Manhattan’s namesake is gone, but our original people are not. We are still here in Lenapehoking.”
“Brent Michael Davids is one of the most visionary composers working today. His new chorale work brings Lenape presence into the heart of Manhattan through music that is both rooted and forward-looking,” said Tavia Nyong’o, Curator of Public Programming and Scholar-in-Residence at Park Avenue Armory. “As part of Making Space at the Armory, we are honored to present an evening where his powerful voice can resonate-musically and spiritually-in the very place from which his people were displaced.”
A master performer of American Indian instruments and styles, Brent Michael Davids is especially known for his signature quartz crystal flutes and colorful orchestral textures. He incorporates these into his musical language in a variety…
The Baton Rouge Fire Department responds to a building fire on Friday morning, April 11.(WAFB)
