 Juantio Becenti (Diné / Farmington) lives in the four corners area of New Mexico close to his birthplace on the Navajo Nation. He began composing music at a young age and received his first commission from the Moab Music Festival in 1998. He has since received commissions from Dawn Avery (North American Indian Cello Project), Raven Chacon (Native American Composers Apprenticeship Program), Michael Barrett (New York Festival of Song), George Steel (Abrams Curator of Music, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum), and others. His compositions have been performed by the Phoenix Chamber Orchestra, Dawn Avery, ETHEL, America’s premier postclassical string quartet, and the Claremont Trio. He has studied at the Walden School for Young Musicians which he attended on full scholarship. He was the recipient of a grant from the First Nations Composers Initiative which he received in order to create original music for the film "Two Sprits", a documentary about the life and murder of Fred Martinez, a transgendered Navajo teenager.
World Premiere The Empty (2024) for mezzo-soprano, flute, cello, and piano, dedicated to United States Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, by Juantio Becenti, text "The Empty" ©2008 by Renee Podunovich Used With Permission from "If There Is A Center, No One Knows Where It Begins" ISBN 978-0-6152-0069-9. The world premiere performance of The Empty took place at the 52nd annual Robb Concert, Friday 29 March 2024, 7:30pm mst, UNM's Keller Hall. Featured performers: Jacqueline Zander-Wall mezzo-soprano Jesse Tatum flute Sally Guenther cello Debra Ayers piano Comments are closed.
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