Tremble Staves was written by Diné (Navajo) Raven Chacon and first performed in 2019. It is a site-specific work to be performed on public lands, and in UC Davis’s case in the Arboretum. The multi-movement work will start at the T. Elliot Weier Redwood Grove and finish at the Native American Contemplative Garden, and will at times use water itself as a dynamic musical instrument. The piece connects narratives of Northern California’s complicated relationship with water—usage, access, and rights to name a few—to Navajo creation (origin) stories in which water figures prominently. Members of the UC Davis Percussion Ensemble, Guitar Studio, and the Graduate Student Ensemble will participate, and new narrative text is being written by Wendah Alvarez and Sarah Biscarra Dilley, who are both Ph.D. candidates in Native American Studies at UC Davis, as well as Nora Zade, an undergraduate student pursuing degrees in psychology and Native American studies at UC Davis. These same students will narrate during the performance.
The Living Earth Show (aka TLES, is guitarist Travis Andrews and percussionist Andy Meyerson) is a megaphone and canvas for some of the world’s most progressive artists. They are artists in residence at UC Davis for three significant projects in 2022 at UC Davis: “Music for Hard Times” (March 10), “Tremble Staves” (March 12), and “Affirmative Action” (May 5). The duet was listed in a recent write-up by the Washington Post in its “22 for ’22: Composers and performers to watch this year.”