University Showcase, 2/17, 8:30a: On September 27, 2025, a large-scale musical composition unfurled over the course of a day across Albuquerque. It featured over 200 musicians playing 20 overlapping movements composed by Pulitzer Prize winning composer and University of New Mexico alum Raven Chacon, who also won a McArthur Foundation "genius" grant.
Chacon grew up in Albuquerque and started making music as a teenager, playing all over the city in unlikely places, like rooftops and the West Mesa.
On this episode Chacon talks about the creation of Tiguex: Dawn To Dusk and we hear segments of the musical tapestry that covered the city, from Sandia Crest, to the Rio Grande, to the petroglyphs and volcanoes.
It was an invitation from the Tamarind Institute at UNM that sparked the creation of Tiguex, which is the Tiwa word for the valley between Sandia and Isleta pueblos. Chacon was invited to make a lithograph at Tamarind. He started studying maps at the Magic - the Maps and Geographic Information Center at UNM.
