ROBERT MIRABAL

Robert Mirabal weaves the flute traditions of Native Americans into a hybrid sound that draws on rock, folk, hip-hop, African rhythms, and techno textures. The Village Voice characterized the outcome as “ancestral drumming and ritualistic chanting create an intoxicating swirl as they intermingle with contemporary ideas and sounds.”

Born into New Mexico’s Taos Pueblo tribe, Mirabal began constructing traditional Native American flutes at nineteen. With a loan from his grandmother he cut his self-titled debut album in 1988. Four years afterward he earned a New York Dance and Performance Bessie award for composing and performing the score “Land” with Japanese modern dancers Eiko and Koma. In 1996 he joined Native American singer-songwriter Bill Miller for the album Native Suite-Chants, Dances and the Remembered Earth. A volume of his poetry, prose, and short stories later appeared under the title A Skeleton of a Bridge. Several of his flutes are exhibited at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum.