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XAKAALAWE (FLOWING), Music/Video, 2004

Duration: 14:00

XAKAALAWE/FLOWING is a very special mix of video and composed music using woodwinds, violin, singing, spoken American indian words and phrases along with elk bugles and calls.  This work was the result of a Rocky Mountain National Park Artist-in-Residency awarded to Priscilla McLean for the month of September 2002, during which she and Barton McLean hiked and videotaped the mountains, elk, waterfalls and streams, and flowers making up the heart of the park. These were somewhat altered through the Videonics Digital Mixer and presented at two public showings at the Park headquarters.

For the music, Priscilla McLean recorded the midnight-bugling elk, which were in their rutting season and displayed in the meadow across the dirt road from their park residence, and young elk during the day. Other sounds used were Priscilla McLean singing and intoning phrases, Charlie Tokarz playing flute, soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones, and bass clarinet, P. McLean on violin, synthesized percussion, the ASR-10 Sampling Synthesizer, and several digital effects units. This was all put together in the McLean home electronic studio during the next two years.  The word “Xakaalawe” is “Flowing” in Crow language.  Both Crow and Arapaho tribal languages are spoken by Priscilla McLean in the piece, often meditatively, the words all pertaining to water, the beauty of nature, and the spirit of the Arapaho tribes who once made their home in the Rocky Mountains.  XAKAALAWE/FLOWING was premiered on April 28, 2007 at the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD and became part of the McLean Mix next series of concerts, Natural Energy, performed through 2010.
 

XAKAALAWE/FLOWING, on the DVD CRIES AND ECHOES, along with three other music/videos by Priscilla McLean, is available through MLC Publications, 55 Coon Brook Rd., Petersburgh, NY 12138 (mclmix@fairpoint.net).
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