Caveat lector: We join our story already in progress. You can read more about the history of this project, from its inception through its 2022 premiere with Portland Chamber Orchestra, with Brett Campbell’s detailed preview and Angela Allen’s enthusiastic review.

You can also read Friderike Heuer’s report on the art exhibition at The Reser–that instutition’s inaugural gallery show–right here. And check out Bennett Campbell Ferguson’s chat with Ives (one of the Four Big Names of the Oregon School of Composition) right here.

And you can experience the expanded “Celilo Falls” when Oregon Symphony performs it with narrator Brent Florendo Sitwalla-Pum on June 6 in Salem and June 7-9 in Portland (more information and tickets here).

In addition, beginning at 7:15 p.m. Monday, June 9, All Classical Radio will do a live broadcast of the symphony’s “Celilo Falls” and “Scheherazade” concert at 89.9 FM in Portland and Vancouver, and available to stream online at allclassical.org. The recording will be included on All Classical Radio’s third album.

Ready? All set? Okay, let’s go!

You already know these people, dear reader, if you’ve spent any amount of time at all with Oregon ArtsWatch in our journey Watching the Arts of Oregon: Joe Cantrell and Nancy Ives are two of the most important figures in the entire Oregon arts ecosystem.

You’ve seen Cantrell’s work here plenty of times, whether it’s simply taking photos at a Fear No Music concert (check out the latest one here) or covering the twelfth season of Classical Up Close (check that out here). He also sits on various boards (including Oregon ArtsWatch’s), cultivates relationships with artists and activists and storytellers all over the state (such as Ed Edmo, whose words play a central role in Celilo Falls), and in general kicks a lot of ass in his quiet way.

A few years ago, Cantrell had this to say (in an essay for the Mt. Hood Cherokee newsletter Talking Leaves, republished by OAW) about the role that Cherokee traditions play in his life’s work:

Cherokee tradition embraces outside technology and methods when we think they will be useful. One of the best examples of that was Sequoyah’s remarkable feat of single-handedly developing his syllabary. Sequoyah was one of only a handful of geniuses in human history who have single-handedly invented a written language for their people. It was so effective and easy to learn that illiterate Cherokees could become literate in one week! Compare that to the amount of time and energy we spend to learn English, folks, and the sad state of the language in spite of it.

Growing up in Tahlequah, Cherokee County, Oklahoma, the name Sequoyah surrounded us from the Sequoyah Theater to the “Indian Training School,” as it was known then, to the grade school. He became a part of who we were and would be. Even in my mid 70s, he still is. So as my photography has evolved since they sent me to the Tahlequah High School darkroom, September of 1960, it was natural that Sequoyah’s influence would follow.

I am perplexed by the fact that to meet a popular concept of “real Indians,” the Cherokees back in the Smoky Mountains apparently must emulate Plains Indians, the ones who John Wayne and other show-biz white guys could kill with one pistol shot from a running horse. Last time I was at the Cherokee Holiday Parade down Main Street, Tahlequah, our Principal Chief and Tribal Council wore big eagle feather headdresses. I don’t recall ever seeing a Cherokee man wear a turban, our real traditional head covering, as Sequoyah did.

In my personal blend of art/ science/cultural expression, there is no separation between them. Of life, time, space, none of those things exist separate from everything else. I live in 2020, not 1880 or a John Wayne flick, so all is eligible, it all relates. I’m writing this on an iPad, not parchment. My computers are Cherokee, too.

His OAW bio includes this line, which pretty much says it all:

The VA finally acknowledged that the war had affected me badly and gave me a disability pension. I regard that as a stipend for continuing to serve humanity as I can, to use my abilities to facilitate insight and awareness, so I shoot a lot of volunteer stuff for worthy institutions and do artistic/scientific work from our Cherokee perspective well into many nights. Come along!

Come along, indeed!

Ives, meanwhile – well, you probably know her work by now. The present author’s spidey sense says she’s just getting started. And let’s set aside the excellence of the music itself for a moment, though her music does indeed have the excellence of a mature composer who’s spent her career as a cellist playing everything from Bach and Brahms to Lenny Kravitz and Kevin Putz. But there’s a feature to Ives’s music that stands out, an extramusical feature (if we can even truly define such a thing as “extramusical” in our holographic reality, wherein everything is interdependent with everything else and all is one). We’re talking about Ives’s role as culture-bearer.

This is a good excuse to quote the eminently quotable Lou Harrison. In a 1986 interview with Eric Marin, Lou explained the motto which encapsulated both his cultural hybridity and his overall attitude towards life, the universe, and everything:

I developed a motto of my own, which is, in order: cherish, conserve, consider, create. It seems to me that that’s a general course of any enthusiasm. First, you find something that you love, and you cherish it. Then, of course, if you love it you want to conserve it, save it. And then, in doing so, you consider it in all of its parts and aspects. And out of that you may be moved to create something.

You can sense that same spirit in Ives’s work, in the sensitive and enthusiastic way she collaborates with and amplifies Native voices. In our most recent chat with Ives and fellow composer Nicholas Emerson, we discussed these issues in connection with her cello-and-voice composition …black now, dark ocean…, which uses the Inuktitut words “uggianaqtuq” and “aniuvat” to address climate change. One of her more recent works, The Spirit of the Columbia (also in collaboration with Cantrell), was composed for Portland Youth Philharmonic’s Portland Youth Conservatory Orchestra in much the same spirit. You can watch Cantrell and Ives discussing the work right here:

And you can watch the PYCO premiere, featuring Harold Paul’s drumming and dance group Four Directions, right here:

And you can read our long discussion with Cantrell and Ives about the expansion of Celilo Falls right here.

The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity and flow.

***

Oregon ArtsWatch: Let’s start with the display in the lobby. Joe, you’re managing that –how’s it going?

Joe Cantrell: It’s coming together like you wouldn’t believe.

OAW: You said you’re on your way to pick something up right now? What’s that?

Cantrell: Lillian Pitt. In my opinion, she’s the matriarch of all Pacific Northwest Native artists. She’s slowing down some, but she has been inspired to do these Star Spirits that are her interpretation of the spirits we see in pictographs and petroglyphs, but these are carved in wood, and I’m on my way to pick them up now. I’ll share pictures when I get them.

Cantrell: We’re having a culturally rich exhibit in the lobby to set the stage for the symphony. We’ve got photographs – there’s a famous photograph of Celilo Falls, just before it was flooded, the chief standing there with his wife and his granddaughter. His granddaughter is going to be there. I just can’t believe how things have come together. 

Nancy Ives: Well, you should be able to believe it because so much of it is from your tireless efforts.

Cantrell: Well, I can’t say tireless. I’m kinda tuckered! We talk like that in Oklahoma.

OAW: So tell me more about this exhibit. What are some of the things that are going into that?

Cantrell: It’s being curated by Phil Cash Cash, who is a double PhD, Nez Perce Cayuse. He’s nationally known, one of the co-founders of Crow’s Shadow Institute. And he is in town now actively curating this. We’re looking to put up a written history that we’re trying to get from the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. It’s on their website, and we want to print that and make it a banner that people will see as they come in, and then they move through these exhibits. 

Another really significant one is Lillian Pitt. She did six artistic images of salmon in her whole life because what has happened to the salmon makes her so sad. She’s a very sensitive artist, and she only did six, but she gave them to me. They’re being printed and mounted by Pushdot Studio right now in Astoria, and I’ll be picking those up probably next week. 

And then we have several other historical photographs, like up at Celilo Falls. Aurolyn Stwyer, another stalwart from Warm Springs, is furnishing an 1880 vintage, very significant beaded weaving, along with a bag from 1926, almost identical to one in the Arlene Schnitzer Collection, and one that she, Aurolyn, made in 2010. That’s going to be there. Oregon Historical Society is providing secure enclosures; it’s going to be a museum in the lobby.

Beadwork courtesy of Aurolyn Stwyer. Photos by Joe Cantrell.

Ives: It’s great going beyond program notes. Would it be safe to say, Joe, that CRITFC, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, partnered really early?

Cantrell: Yes. I called my friend Marcella Settler-Kantjas, who’s sort of my ultimate Yakama friend. We worked together doing cultural photography since the early 1990s, and I’ve been on their fishing boat. Her house is where I photographed Louise Billy, the Yakama medicine woman with the golden eagle and the salmon. She was staying with them. Marcella has, from the beginning, done everything she could. And her brother Randy, who is also my friend, is kind of senior emeritus in CRITFC. And I called her and asked her who to talk to at CRITFC to get permission to do this. And she immediately said, “Jeremy Five Crows,” who is her cousin – of course. I never imagined that it would come together this easily and beautifully. It’s so beautiful.

Ives: The other thing that I would add about CRITFC is that in my early research for the original version their website was a wonderful resource for all kinds of really accurate historical information.

Cantrell: Yeah, and beautifully put together, too. And Jeremy is their communications guy. So we’re set.

Ives: That was a treasure trove for me when I was trying to learn.

OAW: How has the work developed over time, as a musical composition and cultural presentation?

Ives: On the surface there are a few obvious things that have changed, from the musical point of view, which is the orchestration, pure and simple. A slightly expanded chamber orchestra is what Yaki asked for. I think I remember saying, “could I please have a harp? I would like a harp, please.” That was the original commission. For this revision, it’s the full complement of the Oregon Symphony. The string sections will be bigger. Full brass, full woodwinds, contrabassoon, tuba, more percussion. Yay, tuba! So that’s the obvious difference, because nothing about the texts, Ed’s writing, none of that has changed at all.

The first movement is substantially rewritten, and that’s where the conversations with Joe come in. Joe and I felt like we weren’t really done after the first performances. We continue to talk about ways to go deeper. It wasn’t that long after those premieres when the possibility and then the confirmation that this was going to happen came up. So there wasn’t much of a lull, really, in terms of our ongoing conversations, and thinking about things. I know Joe would say, “I’m still getting more images and more ideas.” And it dovetailed perfectly with what the Oregon Symphony was interested in, because they wanted something that would align with the theme of this season, the nature theme. It’s such a great way of reflecting on the relationship of humanity and nature.

I won’t speak for Joe here, but what Joe is reiterating over and over again is: “All one.” There is no separation. And I think in my opportunities to talk things with people from various Native cultures, I’m seeing that that is a more pervasive idea, as compared to sort of the Western “Dominion” model. We don’t even think about it, right? We started to think about it as a culture, well, the first Earth Day in the ‘70s? I think we started to think about it a little and to realize, “Hmm, this isn’t working so well.”

Ed’s words and Joe’s perspective were always embedded in it through the music, because that was the essence of the collaboration from the very beginning.

The only thing I changed about the form or the flow of the piece, is that I switched the order of two movements. I remember that “aha moment” I had when I was working on the original one and I found this structure. I mean, it’s 45 minutes. In the musical sense – something it has in common with anything theatrical, where you want to have the ebb and the flow – it’s facilitated by these two poles from my two collaborators. There’s the personal story, and the movements that are reflections on the words, literally orchestrations of song settings of the words. And then there’s the wordless movements, that are my reflections on my many conversations with Joe. They are different musically. So that hasn’t changed. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Having the bigger orchestra, the richer forces, helps when you’re talking about things like deep time, and the second largest waterfall in North America, something as majestic as the Gorge, and one of the great rivers of the world – the Columbia. When you’re talking about these things, the bigger forces are delightful to have as your palette. Just to punch it up. That’s the main change, from my point of view.

The musical themes aren’t really different, except a little bit in the first movement. There’s one totally new thing, that was exactly inspired by a word Joe used: “primordial.” It says “primordial” in the score. I think it’ll be instantly obvious where it is. But then the biggest change, I think, for people who saw either the premiere performances by Portland Chamber Orchestra, or last summer at Siletz Bay Music Festival – they will notice that what’s different is definitely the imagery, the projected imagery. It’s very exciting.

OAW: So then that’s my big question for you, Joe. How do you choose what you’re going to use?

Cantrell: I’m submitting them for Zak Margolis‘ assembly into the video. All of my stuff is still images. I was inspired several years ago – I really am kind of surprised I anticipated this – I started shooting things like rapid fire sequences of huge flocks of geese flying across the sun, movement, the water splashing against the rock in the Klickitat River, somehow thinking these might be a video. And Zak has done a fantastic job. We just saw a preliminary version of it day before yesterday. I think both of us were completely blown away.

Cantrell: When I’m talking about “primordial,” I go back 3.5 billion years. I have sent him some images of a Precambrian stromatolite that is that old. It’s the earliest precursor of life on earth. I’ve come to see this whole project, which Nancy has put it together so beautifully, and Ed’s poetry, and the embrace of the Native community which I was not certain of: It Is All One. I feel that we are bringing it all together. And oh my, what a trip this has been. 

But I have everything from when I went out on the salmon fishing boat, and the Yakama medicine woman, Louise Billy, who passed years ago but  is loved and revered still. And other images that I see in my archives of – must be a million pictures – and just objectively think, “that relates.”

Ives: Another thing that’s new is the photographs of old postcards and historical photographs.

Cantrell: Yeah. I brought this up with Ken Smith, who is known as Tuck’ush A Winch Katchia, a larger than life 91-year-old Wasco medicine man, and he embraced it immediately. They, he and his wife Heidi, live up in Corbett, just up behind Latourelle Falls in the Columbia Gorge. He initiated my visit to their friends’ house, who have a collection of Celilo-era postcards, which I photographed all one afternoon. Zak has used those brilliantly.

OAW: Joe, could you talk a bit about your process from a technological point of view? What sort of gear do you use for shooting, editing, and such? And how does that support what you do creatively and philosophically?

Cantrell: The ones that come to mind immediately when you ask that question are the stacked focus micro photographs, shooting into agate and other usually translucent stones. To do that I used micro photography equipment, or extreme macro anyhow, which is a current high-end Sony camera on a 50-year-old bellows that I’ve carried 77 miles through the jungle across the island of Mindoro, for pity’s sake. I focus into these stones to the last point that I can get sharp, and take a picture. And then I back the focus out a fraction of a millimeter and shoot another and another and another until I get to the surface. Then I take those photos, which are just mostly fuzzy things with one thing sharp, and put them in the Helicon Focus software, which was written in Ukraine. It masks off the soft part and makes the dark part come together until it becomes a space – literally a space. And people look at them and very often they remark, “was this made through the Space Telescope?” And that’s the point. All the way out there and all the way down here is all one. 

Cantrell: Something that’s really come home to me during this creative process is the fact that Native Americans and other tribal people lived with natural values. They lived in direct relationship with nature for thousands and thousands of years. And then some guy showed up one day with a piece of paper, which he imagined had value, and some scribbling on it that said “I own this land.” What do you mean you own this land? You can’t own the land. You are the land. You are the river. You are the salmon. They are us. It’s all one. And that I think is a lesson that the country definitely needs to relearn. 

For the other stuff, I just use my photojournalism. They handed me a school camera in 1960 when I was 14. I shot for Time and Newsweek and the New York Times and NBC in Asia for 15 years. So I’m familiar with it. Normal stuff.

OAW: What was the early part of your career as a photographer like?

Cantrell: Early on they sent me to the school darkroom because – I’m embarrassed to say it because I’m from Oklahoma and we’re raised modest Puritan – but I was tested early and they found that I had a high IQ, so I was the bright kid. That was in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The capital of the Cherokee Nation. Actually, a few miles south of Tahlequah, the end of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. I carry the name of a great-great-great-grandfather, who died on the Trail of Tears. And his father, John Martin, was one of the Cherokee lawyers who took the case to the Supreme Court against Andrew Jackson’s order to remove and white invaders to our ancestral lands who were violent, working a rigged system against us. We won in the Supreme Court, and Jackson said, “They won the case but I have the army.” Sounds kind of like present-day, doesn’t it? 

There was a Moravian missionary, Samuel Worcester, who had moved down with the Cherokees and was helping defend them against the encroaching whites, and he was something else, that guy. He was horsewhipped for it. In 1835, they realized that the removal was probably inevitable. So Reverend Worcester led a party with my ancestor, the original Joe Martin, and they went on a scouting trip to see where Jackson was sending our people. Joe Martin died early in the trek, There was a lot of that. My great great great grandmother, his widow and several kids returned to Georgia and stayed there until 1871, and then they moved to Oklahoma. And one of those kids was my great-great-grandfather.

Cantrell: And then my great-grandfather, Richard Martin, was the father of my grandfather, Stanford Martin, who was also a lawyer in Cherokee County during Prohibition, when the gangsters from Chicago and St. Louis would come down there and hide in the Ozarks. My grandfather in 1907, when he was nine years old, was given a land allotment in the Cookson Hills part of the Ozarks. He gave it up and went to fight in World War One. The only time I ever saw him cry – and this is pertinent – the only time I ever saw him come close to crying was when the Corps of engineers flooded his land with a lake. I’ll never forget that. I was six years old and I will never forget it. I got this thing about dams flooding tribal land.

Cantrell: I might say one of my journalistic stories in Asia that I’m proudest of was stopping a dam the World Bank had financed that was going to flood the Kalinga tribal land, the Philippine rice terraces. I was able to get enough press coverage, finally got a story front page above the fold of the Wall Street Journal. And I was told that when the president of the World Bank saw that, eight o’clock in morning, ten o’clock the project was canceled. That was a good one. 

And they told me if I went back up there again I would not come out. My life was threatened a number of times when I was doing that.

Ives: This man must write a memoir. Am I right?

OAW: Yes, please do!

Cantrell: I’m trying. I’m trying. I am, in fact, trying. It needs to be done. I’ve paid for it, I’m still paying for it, I’ve earned it. I’ll make it happen. That’s why this absolute joy of putting on a symphony, and being part of Classical Up Close, and being able to work with these fantastic people and do wonderful things and make people joyful and happy – especially in contrast with what’s happening out of Washington now – it’s vital. I never dreamed that at almost eighty years old I would be feeling such intense feelings. Never. 

Ives: It’s a superpower, Joe. You’ve got the capacity, the ability to feel that deeply.

Cantrell: It’s a gift. No doubt about it. Looking into those rocks and seeing the universe, it’s a gift. Incidentally that’s one of them as my Zoom background here. It’s a stromatolite. That one’s about 2.3 billion years old. 

Ives: Oh, that’s all? That’s a young one!

Cantrell: To graphically appreciate how old the old ones are, I asked Google “if an inch were a mile, how far is 3.5 billion?” It goes around the Earth twice at the equator and another 6,000 miles. That’s how old it is. 

Ives: I don’t really trust my ability to really comprehend the scale of the Earth, anyway. I’m a lifelong science fiction nut, so I’ve had many brilliant people try to help me do this. But I know enough to know how little I know on this one.

Cantrell: Another piece of relativity that has happened during this, directly relating to this. I had my telephoto lens out, photographing Jupiter and its moons, and realized that as huge as they are, and as dynamic as they are, they’re just a dot in our sky. And then they’re surrounded in the background by thousands of other dots, which may be a zillion light-years across. Yet, to them, we’re an even smaller dot. That gave me a sense of relative size that told me, at that scale, we human-sized things and those microscopic bits of agate or whatever really are about the same size. And holy smoke that that was an epiphany. That’s a fun one. 

I mean, the science fiction dynamics of the solar system. Io, the innermost moon of Jupiter, when the big outer moons and that huge planet line up on either side of it, it has 330-foot tides of solid rock. It’s the most volcanic thing in the solar system. 

Ives: That makes me think of that rock being in the classic Star Trek. That would be its version of hell, or maybe that would be its birthplace.

Cantrell: It’s also the pictographs that have become the rock. Another technical process I use is that I can photograph pictographs that have faded to invisibility, but I have software that makes them visible again. And that told me they have become the rock. And they always were the rock. Because we are the rock, the rock is us. The water is us, the salmon are us. All One.