Biography
J. Reuben Silverbird, a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, has long offset his engagement with Native American music by pursuing a parallel interest in theater. Recordings such as The World in Our Eyes, Shaman 2, and Spiritual Wise Man have positioned him as a leading musical representative of the Nedni Apache, Cherokee, and Navajo tribes, while screen work in Disney's Young Harry Houdini, I'll Take Manhattan, Spirit of Pocahontas, and Fruit of the Vine, together with off-Broadway appearances in Winter Man and Red Sky and the Californian staging of Black Elk Speaks, widened his visibility substantially.
Silverbird acquired his stage abilities from both parents. His father ran a vaudeville and circus tent in the Southwest and enjoyed success as a performer, and his mother gained recognition as a singer and comic. In addition to owning a successful restaurant in New York, Silverbird has served as ambassador and coordinator of an Indian village near Vienna, Austria.
His most ambitious project, The World in Our Eyes: A Native American Vision of Creation, appeared in 1992; Rob Russo conceived and produced the album, which interwove narration, environmental sounds, synthesized soundscapes, and traditional Native American melodies. Silverbird also created a children's album and video drawn from the traditional Navajo story Annie and the Old One.
He has sat on the boards of the American Indian College Fund and the American Indian Museum in New York and presided over the annual American Indian Nations Powwow. His son, Perry Silverbird, has carried the tradition forward, earning recognition as a virtuosic flutist.
Silverbird acquired his stage abilities from both parents. His father ran a vaudeville and circus tent in the Southwest and enjoyed success as a performer, and his mother gained recognition as a singer and comic. In addition to owning a successful restaurant in New York, Silverbird has served as ambassador and coordinator of an Indian village near Vienna, Austria.
His most ambitious project, The World in Our Eyes: A Native American Vision of Creation, appeared in 1992; Rob Russo conceived and produced the album, which interwove narration, environmental sounds, synthesized soundscapes, and traditional Native American melodies. Silverbird also created a children's album and video drawn from the traditional Navajo story Annie and the Old One.
He has sat on the boards of the American Indian College Fund and the American Indian Museum in New York and presided over the annual American Indian Nations Powwow. His son, Perry Silverbird, has carried the tradition forward, earning recognition as a virtuosic flutist.
Albums