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Symphony, Bill Miller to team on new project(La Crosse Tribune (Wisconsin)(KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Aug. 24--Grammy Award winner Bill Miller and the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra are working on what the Amer-ican Indian musician terms a joint "healing" project that will debut in La Crosse in 2008. Miller, a Stockbridge Mohican who started his music career in La Crosse, said Wednesday the project will include his own symphony, "The Last Stand," and a program that will be done in La Crosse-area high schools. "I want kids to look at the American Indian culture quite differently, and I want this project to bring about hope, peace and healing," Miller said. Miller said the project has been three years in the works. He said he finished a 25-minute symphony with orchestrator Kristin Wilkinson of Nashville that is based on the historical events of the Battle of Little Bighorn, often referred to as Custer's Last Stand. "It was a bittersweet victory for the Indians, and it was the only battlefield named for the loser (Custer's Battlefield)," he said. "But what followed was horrific for our people." Miller played his Native American flute at a 1992 ceremony renaming the site as the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. "I had never seen a musical piece dedicated to that battle," he said, "and I thought, 'Why not a symphony, and have the premiere in La Crosse, where we have established ties and a collaboration?' Everything in my life, to my family and career, started here, so why not have this project here?" Miller appeared in a concert collaboration between the Ho-Chunk Nation and the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra in May 2005, not long after he won the Grammy Award for best Native American music album. "The Last Stand" symphony will use orchestra, vocalists, dancers and multimedia images, Miller said. The piece expresses the hardships, challenges and mutual respect of both sides in the battle, the tragic outcome and the start of healing for all people, he said. "There was no reconciliation and healing after the battle, which hurt our people for generations," Miller said. "This project will be the beginning. Racism is still alive, but we're one human race, and it's time for peace and hope." Miller said he hopes to take the symphonic piece across the country and has dreams about an HBO production and a performance at the battlefield. "Through art, I think we can achieve the healing we need and long for," he said. He's in the middle of painting a 46-by-64-foot canvass of a warrior in eagle feather dress with his arms wide open -- and soldiers on one side and Indians on the other side in retelling the story of the battle. Miller said high school artists and writers will add to the canvas and create their own artwork "that will speak about their own 'last stand.'" "This is a project that will touch the community, and it will help in the healing process," said Connie Knutson, the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra executive director. "The school project will help educate another generation." More Miller Bill Miller's "The Last Stand" symphony will have its world premiere with the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra in late April or early May 2008. Miller will join Vince Gill in a live PBS concert Sept. 11 marking the 100th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood. He'll also open for the band Lynyrd Skynyrd on Sept. 3 in Copper Mountain, Colo. Terry Rindfleisch can be reached at [email protected] or (608) 791-8227. Copyright (c) 2006, La Crosse Tribune, Wis. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |