Exhibition preview·New York
Pulitzer-winning Diné artist Raven Chacon turns whistles, wind and city noise into improvised ritual at Park Avenue Armory
Composer, performer and visual artist Raven Chacon staged hour-long improvisation sessions at Manhattan's Park Avenue Armory on October 7 and 8 as part of the venue's 2026 Artists Studio series, building sound from whistles, synthesizers and field recordings. In a new interview he discusses how place, the tools of colonial violence and deep listening shape his practice, and previews an upcoming exhibition at SFMOMA.
Raven Chacon, the Diné composer, performer and visual artist who received the Pulitzer Prize for music, filled the Veterans Room of Manhattan's Park Avenue Armory with two nights of live improvisation this week. The performances on Wednesday and Thursday formed part of the Armory's 2026 Artists Studio series, a program that hands the historic room over to a single artist at a time. Chacon worked from a table crowded with modest objects: sound mixers, synthesizers, pedals and speakers alongside a whistle, a turkey call and a ceramic horn. During Thursday's hour-long session he blew through the whistle into a microphone and folded the sound into loops, layering it over a slowly rising drone. The evening moved between harsh screeches and quieter passages, ending with recordings of wind sent through a hyperdirectional speaker that he walked in a circle around himself, sweeping the sound through different corners of the room. Speaking by phone between the two performances, Chacon described how the places he plays in inevitably leak into the music. Recordings gathered in New Mexico appear in his urban sets, while the sirens and traffic of Park Avenue slip in through the walls. He also addressed his habit of repurposing instruments and objects linked to colonial violence, treating them as material for a practice rooted in deep, deliberate attention. The Armory nights come as Chacon looks ahead to a forthcoming exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The interview positions the performer not just as a composer of scores but as a listener whose improvisations map geography, memory and the violent histories embedded in everyday sound.


