This led to Shane Doyle commissioning me for Mountain Time Arts to write a piece for Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary. We first got to work together at Intermountain Opera Bozeman when we did a concert called “Circle of Resilience” and Michael Sakir who’s the artistic director asked me to bring back that dissertation piece, so I got to do it again. He is now one of my biggest collaborators and I work with him on a regular basis. I also met the composer and pianist Jerod Tate, who is Chickasaw. But then the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian wanted the work, and from there, I met many people who were interested in classical Native music. My brother played slap bass, so I wrote a piece for piano, voice, and slap bass for this recital, never thinking I would ever do it again. I took it upon myself to set the poem to music. It was in a hybrid dialect, very Oklahoman based, and he wrote it to try to convey how things were actually said, like what you can find in Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn. I had one poem by Posey that no one wanted to set. At the time, I never considered myself much of a composer. My first idea was to do a Native American art song recital, but I didn’t know if the repertoire existed, so I thought I’ll create it with poetry. That opened a lot of doors for me to be doing work with my Native background. When I was doing my doctorate in voice performance at the University of Michigan, we had three dissertation recitals that we had to perform and then defend they usually ask you to find a specialty, so I decided to commission works based on Alexander Posey’s poetry. We can be much more involved, and I take online Muskogee language classes. Nowadays it’s much easier because of Zoom. I grew up wanting to be more invested in the heritage than what I was able to be, not living close to the tribe. He’s very well known in indigenous poetry but also in American literature. The famous poet Alexander Posey is my great, great, great uncle. So, I’m Muskogee, there’s also Chickasaw heritage as well but you have to choose a tribe to get your citizenship and my family is more ingrained within Muskogee heritage. My parents got my brother and me our Muskogee citizenship when we were children, but I am not from where my tribe lives, which is primarily in Oklahoma. Please tell us about your heritage and how it has shaped your multifaceted career. We had the opportunity to speak as she prepared the upcoming West Coast premiere of Girondines, an opera for which she wrote the libretto and in which she plays a famous woman of the French Revolution, Charlotte Corday. A fervent promoter of women and indigenous people, Kirsten is trailblazing her way forward, establishing an esteemed, inspiring role for herself in American music culture, building a remarkable legacy, and furthering representation and inclusion. She is also a librettist, composer, artistic director, and educator. Kunkle has been praised as the “leading Native American soprano” of our times and her career has blossomed within a vast realm of creativity and advocacy. I do not wish the poet to go because of the inherent qualities.Kirsten C. I appreciate the poet who has dared to write his own epitaph during his lifetime. Sharing the inner feelings or speaking the heart out helps in adjusting, molding, or enduring with the current situations. Wouldn't it be better to feel the fragrance of departed nears and dears by reminiscing the good time spent with them or devote ourselves to the causes dear to them? In saying so, I do not mean that one should never get emotional by maintaining a stony face or put artificial mask. It is fresh and may live and grow for long time. Why to grieve? The soul or consciousness, by discarding the old and frail body, has got a new body. But there is another aspect to be meditated over. Feelings are the same whether one lives in India, like me, or at distant places like the poet. It reminded me of the universality of human feelings.
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