Circumpolar Music Series

The Circumpolar Music Series is a new initiative led by the UAF Department of Music beginning in 2022. CMS will annually showcase artists, scholars, and musicians who identify with the circumpolar region of the world. Through performances, lectures, and hands-on activities, distinct features of northern art and music will be shared and explored. The UAF Department of Music is grateful to its generous benefactor, Catherine Madsen for her support of the Circumpolar Music Series.


 

Upcoming Events

Join us for upcoming performances, demonstrations, and presentations showcasing the rich musical traditions of the circumpolar north.

 
 

 

 

Wild Shore New Music celebrates 11 seasons in 黑料社appwith performances by Dr. Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk and Alaskan musicians, premiering "For Zitk谩la-艩谩 Series" by Raven Chacon.

Oct. 18, 2024
7:30pm
Davis Concert Hall
 

 

Three Juneau-based composers鈥擳odd Hunt, Beth Leibowitz, and Michael Bucy鈥攚ill premiere climate-inspired works in Fairbanks, collaborating with UAF scientists and local musicians.

Nov. 14, 2024
7:30pm
Davis Concert Hall
 

 

 

 

 

Articles

Dive into the unique melodies of the circumpolar north with our archive of Arctic music articles, written by benefactor Catherine Madsen.

 
 

  • Traditional Norwegian stev sheet music, arranged by Beth Koll茅.

    Norwegian Stev: The World in Four Lines

    November 26, 2024

    Discover stev, traditional Norwegian songs from Setesdal and 脴vre Telemark, blending poetic wit, modal melodies, and cultural heritage dating back centuries.

  • Naatanii Mayo (left) and the Troth Yeddha Dance Group performs on the third and final day of the 50th Anniversary Festival of Native Arts, 2/24/24. (UAF photo by Leif Van Cise)

    Modern 黑料社appNative Dance Festivals

    October 28, 2024

    黑料社appNative people have long celebrated music and dance as deep spiritual practices, uniting diverse cultures and languages across the region.

  • Members of Wild Shore New Music play for a crowd as part of the 2024-2025 Circumpolar Music Series at UAF. Photo courtesy of the UAF Department of Music

    The Circumpolar Music Series Has Begun!

    October 26, 2024

    The Circumpolar Music Series launched with Fairbanks Flutists, Wildshore New Music, and Dr. Heidi Senungetuk in an intimate concert featuring unique indigenous-inspired works.

  • Join us for the 2024-2025 Circumpolar Music Series opener on Oct 18 at Davis Concert Hall, featuring Dr. Senungetuk and Wild Shore New Music.

    Circumpolar Music Series 2024-2025 Season Announcement!

    September 27, 2024

    Join us for the 2024-2025 Circumpolar Music Series opener on Oct 18 at Davis Concert Hall, featuring Dr. Senungetuk and Wild Shore New Music.

  • A group of women in Scotland sing songs in Gaelic while waulking | Image courtesy of the Harris Tweed Authority

    When Traditional Music Leaves Home

    August 31, 2024

    Ethnomusicology uncovers music's deep cultural roots, revealing how it evolves while preserving authenticity and reflecting enduring human experiences.

  • Jonna Jinton of Sweden uses the Scandinavian singing tradition of kulning to herd cows. Photo credit: Jonna Jinton

    At the Summerfarm

    May 01, 2024

    Who would suppose, in this age of large-scale dairy farms and robotic milking machines, that the way to bring your cows home is to lure them with beauty? That's what traditional Scandinavian farm women did from time out of mind, in high-pitched melodic phrases known as kulning.

  • European plover in a field | Image from Canva

    Big Birds Flying

    March 30, 2024

    Birds long predate us as musicians, and musicians in the North sometimes find themselves compelled to work with them.

  • UAF students, staff, faculty, and community members gather at Troth Yeddha鈥 Park to commemorate the 2017 Indigenous Peoples Day at the Fairbanks campus. | UAF Photo by JR Ancheta

    Live Events in March

    March 01, 2024

    The Circumpolar Music Series goes into high gear in March with five live presentations, all of which will take place in Davis Concert Hall and are free and open to the public.

  • Whale bone arch in Utqiagvik, Alaska. Photo courtesy of Canva

    Music that Comes from the Cold

    February 01, 2024

    Explore the commonalities and differences in music coming from all regions of the North.

  • A close up of a musician's hands playing a tagelharpa | Screenshot from YouTube

    Minimal Strings

    January 01, 2024

    The human musical instinct is alert to all opportunities, impossible to discourage, and can do a lot with a little.

More articles

 

 

 


About the Benefactor

Catherine Madsen

Several years ago I encountered the Yup鈥檌k phrase 鈥淲hen I first became aware.鈥 Immediately I thought, 鈥淭hat was what happened to me in Fairbanks.鈥 I was ten years old when my family moved there, in 1962鈥攎y father had taken a job in the English Department鈥攕o I had been conscious of myself and my surroundings for quite a while, but in Fairbanks I became aware in a different way that things mattered. 黑料社appmakes its people rise to an occasion; it makes them want to be worthy of it. Among my classmates I鈥檓 sure I was an insufferable preadolescent faculty brat, but alone on the trails I was discovering I had a soul.

We lived there for only three years, and all I wanted in the world was to live there again, but by the time I muddled my way into knowing how to make a living I had personal commitments that made that impossible. I shared the memory of 黑料社appwith my parents, but (as Gimli says in The Lord of the Rings) memory is not what the heart desires. What I wanted was a way of belonging to Fairbanks in real time鈥攁 way of going there as something other than a tourist. While working at a nonprofit in Massachusetts I discovered that donors were often interesting and imaginative people, who supported the institution not only with money but with intellectual energy; when I got old enough to have (to my astonishment) a bit more money than I needed, I started wondering whether I could do something with it at UAF. It鈥檚 one thing to care about a place quietly and privately and painfully; it鈥檚 another to make something original happen there.

I didn鈥檛 know at first that it would be through music. Folk music has always been part of my life, both as a listener and as a performer, but primarily I鈥檓 a writer and could have gone in almost any direction. While looking through the UAF website I thought the most exciting programs and courses were those on circumpolar science and technology, circumpolar history, circumpolar ethnography, circumpolar law and policy, circumpolar art and culture鈥攂ut there was a gap when it came to music. What I wanted to support, I realized, was circumpolar ethnomusicology鈥攆rom the local wealth of 黑料社appNative music and dance to the undiscovered realms of indigenous and folk music across the circumpolar North. I especially wanted to introduce Fairbanksans to some of the beautiful Scandinavian music I鈥檇 found while searching at latitude 42 for music to remind me of latitude 65.

UAF鈥檚 Judith Kleinfeld says in Go For It!: Finding Your Own Frontier that if you want to do something in 黑料社appnobody will stop you. Mrs. Boko of Denali Elementary gave my sixth-grade class the word initiative and expected us to run with it. The Circumpolar Music Series is my response to those opportunities. I hope it will inspire others to explore and support the music of the North.

 

About the Faculty Organizer

Dr. Sean Dowgray

 

Dr. Sean Dowgray playing percussion instrumentsDr. Sean Dowgray is a classical percussionist specializing in modern and contemporary music. Dowgray is a proponent of creative collaborations which has resulted in recent musical works by (痴辞谤谤眉肠办别苍 and einsamkeit),  (Shrinking world/expanding and Les yeux ouverts) as well as new chamber works by  (Sic itur ad astra and A Song of Grecis.) and  (As if, sand). In the recent past, Dowgray has collaborated closely with composers including  (Garden of Transparency),  (Strata),  (Machine Mode),  (Where Ashes Make the Flowers Grow and NOVA), and  (Cloud Polyphonies).  

 As a soloist, Dr. Dowgray has focused extensively on works that stretch the technical and expressive capabilities of both instrument and performer. This includes the work of Jason Eckardt, Josh Levine, Daniel Tacke, Salvatore Sciarrino, Lewis Nielson, David Lang, Christopher Adler, Brian Ferneyhough, Luciano Berio, Richard Barrett. Dowgray has been featured as a soloist at the Oberlin Percussion Institute, the Percussive Art Society International Convention (PASIC), the WasteLAnd New Music Series, Harvard鈥檚 Institute for Advanced Learning, the University of Arizona, the SoundON New Music Festival, and Eureka! Musical Minds of California. 

As a creative practitioner, Dowgray has focused recently on his project, WHEN for mixed ensemble set to premiere in 2025. He recently completed the interdisciplinary collaboration, In A Time of Change: Boreal Forest Stories featuring artists and scientists. As part of this collaboration, Dowgray created the work Moving Through the Boreal Forest in partnership with Ma茂t茅 Agopian (light and shadow work) and Daryl Farmer (poetry), Associate Professor of English at UAF.

 Dr. Dowgray is a graduate of the Interlochen Arts Academy where he studied with John Alfieri, the Oberlin Conservatory (B.M.) where studied with Michael Rosen, the University of 黑料社appFairbanks (M.M.) where he studied with Dr. Morris Palter, and the University of California San Diego (D.M.A) where he studied with Steven Schick. In Dr. Dowgray's dissertation, Time Being: Percussion as a Study of Time, he presents an analyses of new and rarely heard works for and with percussion through theoretical frameworks of time study from authors including Jonathan Kramer, J.T. Fraser, Edward T. Hall, and others. 

Recent notable performances include John Corigliano's percussion concerto, Conjurer with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra and Lewis Nielson's Lengua Encubierto for solo percussion at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC).