Dawn Avery
Grammy Award and Native American Music Award (NAMA) nominated performer Dawn Avery is a worldrenowned cellist and vocalist. Her Native American heritage and Sufi experience are reflected in her music as she blends spiritual, folk, pop and classical elements to create a contemporary sound.
Of Mohawk Kaniènké:ha descent, Avery’s Mohawk name is Ierihó:kwats, which means “digging deeply into her roots to learn”, and she wears the turtle clan. She grew up around music with her earliest memories being falling asleep to the sound of her father’s drumming—a talented jazz drummer. Immersed in dance and music as a child, she later picked up and fell in love with the cello, which she describes as having a “vocal range that is very similar to the human voice.”
Inspired by the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Yo-Yo Ma, her worldly sound is as diverse as her musical interests and experiences. Not only has she toured (for many years) with a string quartet playing the Delta Blues but she also toured with a Persian
Funk band. Avery’s passions lie in working with all kinds of people, learning from many different cultures and traditions, and studying sacred music, all of which is evident in her music and other projects.
Avery is committed to Indigenous language and cultural preservation as a musician, educator and participant of Longhouse ceremonies. She is also a workshop facilitator and produces projects as part of the Native Composers Project. Currently she is completing a recording of the North American Indian Cello Project with compositions by Native composers.
She has composed music for awardwinning films, most recently The Warrior Tradition produced by Hott Films, and major theatre productions with Spiderwoman Theatre in NYC, the Alliance for New Music-Theatre in Washington DC and Heather Henson’s IBEX Puppetry. The latter Indigenous-based project led to a run at the New Victory Theatre on Broadway, Ajijaack on Turtle Island (2019) and the release of the album Crane on Earth, in Sky: a Journey (2017), which won two silver medals for Best Album and Best World Music for Theatre at the Global Music Awards. Her latest Global Music Award-winning multimedia projects and recordings feature what has been called Native downtempo (50 Shades of Red) and World Mystic Pop (Beloved).
As a composer and award-winning educator, Avery has worked with musical luminaries Luciano Pavarotti, Sting, John Cale, John Cage, R. Carlos Nakai, Glen Velez, Larry Mitchell and Joanne Shenandoah. She has collected awards for her classical compositions from Duke University, the Ford Foundation’s Indigenous Knowledge, Expressive Culture grant program (of the American
Composers Forum), the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, American Dance Festival, Washington Flute Association, NYU and Meet the Composer, among others.
Avery holds a PhD in Ethnomusicology with research on the application of Indigenous Theory to Native Classical Composers and their music, in which she created new methodologies to decolonize traditional research and analysis, and its representation. She is committed to the preservation of language and culture through the production of archival recordings and her Native Composers Project. She is also devoted to water sustainability and education through the arts.
With the goal of making a positive difference through music, Avery hopes to inspire listeners, drawing them into another realm of beauty. Avery’s artistry can be heard on radio, television and in film.