Hymns to the homeland: Choctaw composer draws from tribal traditions for new album

James D. Watts Jr.

Tulsa World Scene Reporter

The importance of music to Charles Shadle’s family is embodied in a book published some 200 years ago.

Shadle, an Oklahoma native and member of the Choctaw Nation, is a senior lecturer in music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches composition, music theory and music history. He is also an acclaimed composer, whose works include four symphonies, three operas, several film scores, choral works and chamber music pieces.

Several of these chamber music works make up “Choctaw Places,” a new recording by the Lontano Ensemble, a British-based chamber group led by conductor and composer Odaline de la Martinez.

“All the pieces on this album engage with an element of Choctaw musical tradition that perhaps is not as well know