The Forum with Raven Chacon

The Forum at Grace Cathedral

San Francisco Contemporary Music Players is performing the Bay Area premiere of Raven Chacon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning composition, Voiceless Mass, at Grace Cathedral on November 11, with a preshow talk with Chacon on how music is made. 

Chacon is a composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. His mesmerizing, original work for organ and ensemble, Voiceless Mass, considers the spaces in which we gather, the history of access of these spaces, and the land upon which these buildings sit. In exploiting the architecture of the cathedral, Voiceless Mass considers the futility of giving voice to the voiceless, when ceding space is never an option for those in power.  

At The Forum the next morning, join Malcolm Young for a conversation with Chacon about his career as an artist and mentor; and how his heritage influences his work. 

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Love engaging dialogue? We offer a special cultural membership program, GraceArts, focused exclusively on the arts and well-being. GraceArts allows a wider community to belong to and support Grace, with discounts and benefits on a robust schedule of events. Learn more and join! gracecathedral.org/gracearts

Give to Grace

You can help us bring the arts to life at Grace with a gift today to The Forum. gracecathedral.org/give.

About the Guest 

Raven Chacon (b. 1977) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, performer, and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. Currently, he lives in Red Hook, New York and Albuquerque, NM. A recording artist over the span of 22 years, Chacon has appeared on over eighty releases on national and international labels. He has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at LACMA, The Whitney Biennial, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, SITE Santa Fe, The Kennedy Center, and more. As an educator, Chacon is the senior composer mentor for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP). spiderwebsinthesky.com

About the Moderator 

The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.    

About The Forum  

The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum’s host and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world.  More about Grace Forum Online:  

gracecathedral.org/the-forum.