Park Avenue Armory to Present LENAPEHOKING, A Program Of Chamber Music By Brent Michael Davids

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 of ways throughout this program engages audiences with Indigenous cultural expressions to envision decolonial futures through the power of music and narrative. Ode to Joe (Mahican lyrics, Wappinger theme) for chorus and Native American wood flute is dedicated to the lone Wappinger man "Joe" Two Trees and his friend Ted Kazimiroff, profiled by the author Ted Kazimiroff, Jr. in The Last Algonquin. The last of the Bronx's Turtle Clan, "Joe" Two Trees lived in the wilds of the Bronx's Pehlam Bay Park as recently as 1924, and his story was preserved and documented by the Kazimiroff family. Desert Invocation (2001), a solo work for quartz flute, uses picture notation to evoke a desert landscape, ultimately forming a bowing cactus with its notes. Touching Leaves Woman (Lenape lyrics, 2023), another picture notation work scored for voices and birdroars, honors Lenape teacher and herbalist Nora Thompson Dean (1907-1984), a beloved Indigenous cultural treasure who dedicated her life to preserving Lenape culture. Written for string quartet and narrator, The Last of James Fenimore Cooper (Mohican theme, 2001) spoofs Cooper's book Last of the Mohicans, honoring the surviving Mohicans, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community, and to their perseverance, longevity, humor and unique way of life.

"The mission of Lenape Center establishes that the Lenape people still exist, live, and work today in Lenapehoking, our homeland and territory that still holds the spirits and voices of our Lenape ancestors," says Hadrian Coumans, Co-Founder and Deputy Director of the Lenape Center. "We are honored to co-present a musical evening with the Armory's public programming series, celebrating the enduring presence of Lenape in what is now lower Manhattan. We are the grandfathers and the peacemakers having survived hundreds of years of genocide. We welcome audiences to an evening with Brent Michael Davids, to the Armory, to Manhattan, to Lenapehoking."