In 1982, my husband, Robert Bonfiglio, and I visited the canyons of Northern Arizona.

And our first trip was to the Grand Canyon.

And we started on the South Rim and hiked to the North Rim and then back again.

Our first day down was at the Colorado River, and you put your aching feet in the ice cold water, and I took my flute out and I was playing a little bit, and my husband went off someplace else and played his harmonica.

We were not aware of the fact that there was a park ranger there who heard our music, and he invited us to go into the cabin, the Rangers Cabin later that evening to play a concert for them.

You know, after two days of hiking in the Grand Canyon, you're like, okay, I guess I guess we'll play a concert.

But we had a wonderful time talking to the rangers who were there.

And when we got back, we looked up that ranger, whose name is Joe Quiroz, and, said to him, has anyone ever thought of having a music festival here?

And in 2000, there was a composer named Brent Michael Davids who came to the festival, part of what was called the President's Council on the Millennium.

One site in each state was chosen to compose a new piece of music to celebrate the millennium.

I decided to write a piece that was about the Havasupai, who live in the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

So I hiked down and I met Matthew Putesoy.

He was a chief at that point, and he and I came up with an idea for a piece to compose for the Grand Canyon Music Festival.

He introduced me to the Ram Dancers, and they have this, performance group called Guardians of the Grand Canyon and it's based on this idea of the Ram.

So I met them, and I had the privilege of, like, seeing a Ram Dance when we were down there.

So I wrote a piece for flutes, outside the Ram Dance performance.

They would perform in the middle.

It was amazing combination of ceremonial Ram Dance and flutes and percussion work that was performed at the South Rim for the Grand Canyon Music Festival.

I think a lot of musicians have a sense of sort of this, it's part of our tradition to give back and to be teachers and to educate.

So starting in our second season, we started doing outreach education programs at the local Grand Canyon School, also in Tuba City on the Navajo Nation.

And we kind of started to feel like Brigadoon because we'd show up once a year, play a concert, talk to the kids and go home.

It was like a magic show, like, you know, and I saw performers from New York coming and performing in front of us in the school.

I thought there could be more.

And we really wanted to have something that would have more of an impact, but also to hear the students voices, to find a way to have them share themselves with us.

I suggested to Clare Hoffman of the festival that it might be better to focus on the older age group.

They might be actually writing music for the festival.

That's it.

That's what we're going to do.

That's the perfect way to, you know, start branching out and maybe having a greater impact on the students.

So the following year, 2001, Brent Michael Davis came back.

I think we had five students that year.

The quality of the music that the students wrote was really spectacular.

Now, I like to say that, you know, all composers, and that includes our apprentice composers, bring the music that's in their ears to their composition.

I listen to a lot of genres, R&B, Latin, and reggae.

Indie and conscious rap.

Sonic the Hedgehog OSTs.

Something just to think over.

Tyler, The Creator.

Billie Eilish.

Metal, rock and some of pop.

K-pop.

Indie pop.

Hip hop.

Rock to rap to classical to jazz to pop.

Just pretty much anything.

It's just all over.

It really is this incredible amalgam of of these things that that they have in their ears that they bring out.

Ever since 2001, every year we've had composers in residence who teach the students composition.

And then we have professional musicians, usually a string quartet.

We'll go to each school and work with each apprentice-composer, workshopping their piece.

At the end of that process we have a world premiere concert at the Grand Canyon Music Festival.

Hello, I'm Haileigh Autumn Roberts.

I am a high schooler and I'm a sophomore this year.

The piece is called A Fall to Spring.

I hope you enjoy.

My name is Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate.

I'm a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation here in Oklahoma and I'm a professional classical composer.

I got a wonderful call from Brent Michael David's one day asking if I would substitute for him for the Native American Composers Apprentice Project, and I was very excited to accept that for just it was going to be just for one summer but Brent's schedule got very, very busy, so I stayed there for two years and had the great privilege of teaching new composition students from both the Navajo and Hopi Reservations.

For me, as a Native composer myself, role modeling is important.

There aren't enough Native American voices in the American music mix, and we're doing this to encourage young Native students to express themselves through music, to give them the tools they need to be able to express themselves in music.

The best teachers that you could get for for the program would be role modeling from their own community.

I really believe that they needed somebody from their own Tribe to be teaching their kids.

And so since Raven's Navajo, I just thought it was perfect.

So I actually advocated to have bring Raven on board and then have him take over NACAP in Arizona, while I then launched the Chickasaw Summer Arts Academy in Oklahoma.

I was invited to join NACAP in 2004 and joined Jerod Tate and some of the others who were working with these students.

I was really excited by this because this was an opportunity to go back to where I'm from, Chinle, Arizona, and work with kids who had not been exposed to this program yet.

If you don't know Raven, you should.

He is Diné, Navajo, and, he won the Pulitzer Prize for music.

And he's been teaching with NACAP, the Native American Composer Apprentice Project for gosh I can remember how many years.

And so he is somebody who's getting his voice out there very successfully.

In expanding the program, this was starting to be a project that I couldn't do alone, you know, just one person and driving around to each school on the reservation was becoming quite a task, sometimes driving between schools in one day.

Teach in the morning at one location, and then drive two hours and go teach more in the afternoon.

I was needing more assistance, and I had, come in contact with Michael Begay, who was one of the very first students in the first cohort in the year 2000.

He had studied with Brent Michael Davids.

And after a couple of years, we brought him on to help co-teach this.

He had strong music notation skills, some music theory skills, and he is a phenomenal guitarist.

And and of course lives in the, in the community.

My first year with, with NACAP was in 2001, and there was only five of us.

During that year I was working with Brent Michael Davids, the Mohican composer.

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Begay was the my one of my first students, and he went a second year as well.

So he did two pieces, with me his junior and senior year.

Eventually I worked with him for a couple of years, and then I worked with Jared Tate, Jerod Impichchaachaaha Tate, the Chickasaw composer.

So my relationship with Michael Begay goes back to the very beginning.

He was my very first American Indian composition student at this program.

He was also my teacher's assistant.

And since then, I've had the privilege of watching Michael grow in the music business.

And he has actually performed in my works.

And so we've worked together both professionally and we've been friends for over 20 years now.

I just kept writing after that.

And then I worked with Raven Chacon and then after Raven Chacon, I've been working with Raven Chacon forever now, so he's sort of like an older brother to me now.

So I wanted to bring him under my mentorship to learn how to work with these young people.

I think a lot of it is, is, is spending that time, too, listen that other, you know, the Native composer as well, because that was another thing.

It was like it was a mentorship.

My main concern and working with these students is giving them familiarity with all of the sounds that these string instruments can, can do.

To really learn the techniques of composing, you have to hear everything performed, you know, live when youre writing.

For a number of years now, we've had an amazing string quartet called the Catalyst Quartet as our quartet in residence, and they're the ones who work with the students to hone their pieces.

And it's really wonderful to see the reaction of the students, because when the quartet comes into to play the pieces for them, this is the first time they've heard their pieces performed by live musicians.

Up until now, they've been hearing it on laptops.

I just love to see their reactions theyre always like they're blown away, you know?

And there was one girl this year who said something like, better than I expected.

So it's it's wonderful to see how they react and are, are just so into the whole thing and so excited by it.

Hearing the Catalyst String Quartet play it for the first time surprised me, but it sounded just like the website did.

But it sounded pretty cool for it to come to life.

It was like really good and sounded way better than I would even I would expect it to.

When I first heard them play my piece, I felt like, oh no, what if it's going to not end up good?

But as they kept playing or progressing through the scoring, I felt confident, like, hey, this actually sounds pretty good to me and how it reflects off of what how things are going on with me.

My name is Karlos Rodriguez.

I play the cello.

I'm in the Catalyst Quartet.

I am a founding member of the quartet, and we are entering our 14th season.

The Grand Canyon Music Festival was one of our very first, engagements, if you will.

We've been coming here almost since our first season, so we've been out here and touring, collecting music, working with composers, and playing concerts for well over a decade now.

NACAP has been part of all of it since the very beginning.

Every year.

Yeah.

Since the beginning of the quartet, we have been so lucky to be a part of NACAP and this program, which is helping to find Native American voices in classical music, focuses on getting kids to write pieces for a string quartet.

It's almost impossible to write something that sounds bad on a string quartet.

You could write something really angular or dissonant or whatever, but on a string quartet its going to sound really beautiful, you know?

The quartet is a wonderful tool for beginning composition students because of its wide range of expression and its actual literal wide range of notes.

I see our role as just sort of being the “catalyst” for at least for the idea that of of what music can be.

I mean, we know that heavy metal is very popular on the reservations.

At least we've learned over the years.

You know, playing guitar, all these things.

And that's awesome.

And like that enriches our musical vocabulary too.

When we get to play their music, that's basically that's how they feel music.

Thats how they learned music.

The quartet is literally like a small symphony when when you really break it down and there's there's so much color and expression and drama that can be brought out in composition, that it's just a really, really remarkable tool for that.

You can't hide behind orchestration with a string quartet, you know?

And it's like everything is so right up front and direct.

The other thing is, is that the quartet has four different players that are very isolated and very focused.

And so what that does is it brings in a natural counterpoint thinking in the students compositions.

So for instance, they've got four different members, and immediately the students have split their brain into four different sections.

So it's just an incredible intellectual exercise as well as a musical exercise.

While some of the students are influenced by traditional Navajo music, or Hopi, or Salt River Pima music, a lot of them come from a background of listening to heavy metal.

And that was me at that age, at 15, 16, and applying those ideas of what the electric guitar can do to to the violin or the viola or the cello, you know, you get this kind of virtuosic shredding on these instruments.

And for me, I have to wrangle that in a bit, because my requirement is that they have to be able to notate this.

And so we work through those ideas and it comes out in another kind of form.

It doesn't come out sounding like heavy metal or or classical music, comes out sounding like the collision of these ideas and the collision of these cultures.

Helping kids find their own creative voices is one of the biggest joys that I have in composing.

And that's why when I say no stylistic restrictions, I mean it.

And so when you give a kid just kind of carte blanche to just do what they need to do impulsively, they bring it and it happens.

Hello, my name is Timira Scott.

I'm from Pinon, Arizona, but I go to school in Chinle High School.

I'm a senior.

So on the paper it says untitled, but I named it Seasonal Change because it sounds very nice.

And it's how I think of all the seasons.

I found that their style of music to be very congruent to what I was teaching at the time, and I just thought it was really remarkable that they were bringing that that sense of emotion and, and depth of thinking into their composing.

It's just like such a priceless thing for them.

Knowing myself when I was young and, any opportunity that I get, I had for like, even like a musician to come to play for me, that's what initiated me in this path of being a violinist.

So any interaction there is from professional musicians with students, and especially when they get to create something, compose something for a professional ensemble I think that's something that they will remember for the rest of their lives.

We're just bringing a more classical, just some more world music, just broader outside, you know, classical training, whatever that is.

And we're just introducing it to them basically for the first time, definitely the first time up and close.

I mean, there's a lot of areas in our country that never get to experience that up close thing.

And I think it's really powerful just seeing a string quartet, but having them be like right there and like, you know, like, what do you want us to do differently?

Like, we can do anything like I think that's amazing.

Like if I had that when I was a kid, like, oh my God, I have no idea, I probably would be a composer.

I am not aware of any other kind of program like this.

And, you know, in a time where music education is not being prioritized and schools are sort of limiting the artistic access that kids have, I think that it's I mean, it's such an incredible program because it's keeping that artistic access open.

I live in a pretty rural area, even compared to Kayenta.

So I like how open it is.

I like how I can just like be myself out here, how like waking up in the morning just looking outside and you get to see everything.

I grew up in Brooklyn, New York.

My dad was a a maintenance worker for the subway.

He died in 1969, so I didn't really get to know him.

My mom raised the five of us.

When I was in high school I started playing the flute.

It just opened up a world to me.

At that time for a 35 cent token, now you know how old I am, you could hop on the subway and get to Lincoln Center in half an hour.

And I did that every single night I could.

We used to sneak into the City Opera and the City Ballet, and we literally would sneak in and stand backstage and watch what was going on.

What that taught me is that access is so important.

When you live in a place like New York City, everything is there.

I think one of the important things about having people like Michael Begay and Raven Chacon teaching them is that they're exposed to someone who who comes from the same area that they do, and they see that they're successful.

So like, that person wrote some music.

I can write some music, too.

It just sort of opens up their eyes, opens the possibilities.

I think of my trajectory in my life, you know, if it hadn't been for that 35 cent token and the ability to get to Lincoln Center and sneak in, I don't know, I don't know what I'd be doing.

So I think NACAP, for me, is very much, just kind of bringing access to, to this creative world for students and, and a realization, their own realization that this is something that they can do.

The Navajo Nation and, and some of the other communities we work with are very isolated.

To go see even a movie in a theater would be a two hour drive, let alone seeing a classical music concert or an art exhibition.

Just everything is just so far away from each other, and we don't have the resources to facilitate that need.

If you're in the inner city, you could easily get a bus ticket and go to a concert or a performance.

But then out here, everything is like 80 to 100 miles away from each other.

Like if there is an event in Tuba City and you live in Kayenta that's 100 miles right there, then you got that to go back.

Like I always was interested in music.

Ever since I got in high school, I was confused on what I wanted to do on my career.

So I decided to join art classes and then later on then I started to like music a lot more than usual.

At the school, I didnt have like music opportunities to do stuff.

The only thought, the only thought that I had in my head was band.

I can only do.

Then I realized there was NACAP and music composing.

I just wanted to make like something that people would relate to because it kind of makes you feel not alone when someone understands what you're going through, you know?

And I always wanted to do something like that for other people.

That's kind of tricky.

It means everything.

It saved my life.

It's so important to me.

Like, I can't imagine my life without it.

It just makes everything better for me.

It's a huge part of my day.

Something I've always wanted to dabble in.

With making music pieces it really has to come from the heart, so it's really, big and it's really meaningful to me that I can make something like this knowing how much music matters to me in my everyday life.

Music to me is like fun and exciting.

Like, you can have music that excites you and music that makes you understand who you are.

I like it, just because it makes me feel heard in a way.

But also it can get me pumped up.

Creating my own world of learning how I can express myself with emotions.

Like music means Like.

The sound like around you and everything.

Like just like even the sound like someone breathing is music really.

It kind of, like, really helps me, like, inspire me.

It's the coolest process in the world for for a student to come in with a blank page of paper having never written anything before.

And I know that they're about to premiere a new, brilliant work.

They don't know this yet, but I know this, so I lean into that.

They're taking risks.

They're just exploring all kinds of things that they never imagined before in their lives.

So if anybody can come into a program for the very first time and compose a string quartet, they can do anything they want to in the world, and they can transpose that into astrophysics, into running a daycare, into being a civil engineer, whatever they're doing, they now know that they've written a string quartet and had it performed live by a professional quartet.

If they can do that, they can do anything.

Good evening.

My name is Maria Macaraig and I'm a senior from Tuba City High School, and my piece is called Where I Can't Follow.

And it's about the beauty of existence.

So as human beings, our lives are practically insignificant compared to the infinite vastness of the universe and yet we decide to get up every day and put meaning to our lives.

You know, we decide who to love and what to care about.

And I just think that's really beautiful.

This this program for me, this project is one of the most important things that I do in my work, and it's something I hope I can do throughout my entire career in life.

There are so many students that have just, There's there's so many students who not only have benefited from the program, but just had an opportunity to share what's on their minds.

You know, what, what is inside of them and share that with a broader public.

Just like a it's also like how to like, release yourself, to be creative, to like, because there's a lot of times where people are scared to be creative or to be like, bold, too, like, that's where I want to be, like, explain to them, like, your stories are important, you know, like.

It's not just my belief, but it's an absolute fact that human beings are born brilliant, beautiful, and well.

And through a program like this, I am able to reinforce that feeling with kids.

So they believe that in themselves.

They need to know for themselves that they were born beautiful, brilliant, and well.