Category: Platnum Achievement

Kempter, Dale

Post author By Thomas Goodrich
Post date December 1, 2015

Dr. Dale E. Kempter ~ Albuquerque

Dale Kempter (1930-2018) was recipient of the New Mexico Music Commission’s 2017 Platinum Music Award. He was involved for over fifty years with the Albuquerque Youth Symphony. At the end of the 2001-2002 season Dale Kempter resigned as conductor of the AYS, a position he held for 37 years. Dale Kempter continues to serve the AYS Program as Music Director Laureate.

Under Dale Kempter’s leadership, the AYS has performed in Mexico, Canada, England, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Spain, twelve states in the U.S., and twenty-six New Mexico communities. The Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program, which now includes over 600 students in 13 ensembles, has earned the acclaim of music educators from all over the United States.

Dale Kempter is one of the Southwest’s most outstanding music educators and conductors. Dr. Kempter has been an educator in New Mexico for more than 50 years, with a one-year leave of absence to conduct orchestras at the University of Akron, Ohio.

Dr. Kempter retired as Supervisor of Fine Arts and Instruction Coordinator for Albuquerque Public Schools. He has taught music at the elementary and secondary levels and held university teaching positions at Eastern New Mexico University (ENMU) and the University of New Mexico (UNM). He was honored in 1989 as “Music Educator of the Year” by the NM Music Educators Association and won the 1991 American String Teachers National School Education Award. Kempter also received the New Mexico Governor’s Arts Award for Excellence in 2002.

Professionally, Dr. Kempter has performed as a cellist for the New Mexico Symphony, New Mexico Chamber Orchestra, Amarillo Symphony, Roswell Symphony, and the Albuquerque Chamber Music Association. He has also been the Conductor of the Albuquerque Philharmonic and guest conductor of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra and the University of New Mexico Symphony. He holds Bachelors of Music Education and Cello degrees from Kansas University, a Master of Music Education degree and Educational Administrators Certificate from UNM.

Dr. Kempter has served as adjudicator and clinician for music festivals throughout the country, and has conducted All-State Orchestras in Wyoming, Kansas, Ohio, California, Montana, Oklahoma, Nevada, and Louisiana. In addition, he has been a presenter at several national and state music conferences.

Dale Kempter was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico on May 11, 2013.

above: Dr. Kempter’s tribute video from the 2017 Platinum Music Awards show at the Lensic. Filmed, edited, and produced by Sumiko and Casey Moots, with clips from PBS’ Colores special about the Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program.

source: Albuquerque Youth Symphony Program

Mirabal, Robert

Post author By Thomas Goodrich
Post date November 16, 2015

Robert Mirabal ~ Taos Pueblo

Two-time GRAMMY Award winner, Robert Mirabal, is a 2019 New Mexico Music Commission Platinum Music Awards honoree. He lives with his family at the foot of the sacred Taos Mountain in northern New Mexico. Maintaining a traditional life, keeping the centuries-old customs of the Taos Pueblo people, Robert has been described as a Native American “Renaissance man” – musician, composer, painter, master craftsman, poet, actor, screenwriter, horseman and farmer – and he travels extensively playing his music all over the world. If you live a traditional life you see things differently—spiritually and musically. His first flute came when he was 18 with money he borrowed from his grandmother, and shortly afterward he had the opportunity to meet Native American flute player R. Carlos Nakai who greatly influenced him. When we met he looked at my hands and laughed. He said, “I have that same scar. It’s the scar of the flute maker.”

In the years since, Robert has continued the evolution of his flute making and has also become an accomplished novelist, poet, craftsman, composer, dancer, actor, painter, sculptor, concert performer and recording artist. His dozen albums of traditional music, rock and roll, and spoken word present a contemporary view of American Indian life that is unequaled. My music is informed by the ceremonial music that I’ve heard all my life. What I create comes out of my body and soul in a desire to take care of the spirits of the earth. A leading proponent of world music, Robert has merged his indigenous American sound with those of Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, tapping into a planetary pulse with a style that defies categorization. My travels have provided me with experiences that I could have never imagined, and exposed me to a global sound and a global voice.

Whether as a composer, songwriter, or musician, Robert has won many honors including two-time Native American Artist of the Year, three-time Songwriter of the Year, a 2006 GRAMMY Award for Sacred Ground, and his 2008 GRAMMY Award for Johnny Whitehorse Totemic Flute Chants, blending all of Robert’s influences into a musical landscape that conjures up both the historic and contemporary West. His 2002 breakthrough PBS Special, Music From a Painted Cave is unsurpassed in Native American theatrical expression. He is also the author of A Skeleton of a Bridge – a book of poetry, prose, and short stories, and most recently his book, Running Alone in Photographs – a memoir laced with gritty, introspective prose, that opens a window to a palpable experience of life in the Pueblo through the voice of Robert’s alter-ego Reyes Winds.

As a theatrical performer, Robert is no stranger to transforming himself. He portrayed Tony Lujan (Taos Pueblo), the famed husband of Mable Dodge Lujan, in the movie Georgia O’Keeffe, a retrospective about artist Georgia O’Keeffe starring three-time Academy Award nominee, Joan Allen. In recent year’s, Robert has appeared on Japanese and Italian TV as well as several guest roles on Walker Texas Ranger. “In August of 2012,” Robert premiered Po’Pay Speaks, his one-man show in Sante Fe about the leader of the Pueblo Revolt (1680) that is now touring internationally.

above: video biopic short about Robert – premiered August 23, 2019 at the Platinum Music Awards show – created by Bunee Tomlinson of Windswept Media.

Artists Platnum Achievement

Apodaca, Antonia

Post author By Thomas Goodrich
Post date November 16, 2015

Antonia Apodaca ~ Rociada | Las Vegas

Genres: New Mexico traditional & folk music

Antonia Apodaca (November 1, 1923-January 25, 2020) was a beloved icon of New Mexican folk music. She was a musician and songwriter for over 80 years. Her primary instruments were accordion and guitar, along with her passionate voice and treasure chest of traditional music.

From a family of musicians, her mother played the accordion and guitar and her father the guitar, accordion, and violin. At the age of 18, she met her future husband, Macario “Max” Apodaca a fiddler from Carmen, a village near Mora, New Mexico. They settled in Wyoming in 1949 where they lived for 30 years, performing together for both the Hispanic and Anglo communities at dances and local events, and raising five children. They returned to New Mexico in 1979.

Antonia received the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1992, the same year she appeared at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.

Apodaca moved to Las Vegas in 2010 after her home in Rociada burned down. She continued to perform with Trio Jalapeño. Their concerts often included her own compositions, including famous and beloved “Estas Lindas Flores” (These Beautiful Flowers). She was awarded the Premio Hilos Culturales in 2011, an annual award presented to folk artists from New Mexico and Colorado “who have distinguished themselves in their communities as folk musicians or folk dancers of traditional southwest styles of Canciones Del Pasado or Bailes Antiguos.” Toni received the New Mexico Music Commission’s Platinum Music Award for lifetime achievement in 2018.

Learn more about Antonia

above: Antonia’s tribute video from the 2018 Platinum Music Awards show at the Lensic. Filmed and edited by Bunee Tomlinson of Windswept Media. Produced by the New Mexico Music Commission Foundation, David Schwartz Executive Producer. To our knowledge, this is the last on camera interview she gave before her passing.

for more information: bayouseco.com

source: wikipedia.org