Bachelor's of Music from Oberlin Conservatory of Music Master's of Music in Performance from the University of Michigan School of Music PhD in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University
Senungetuk graduated from Wesleyan University with a doctorate in ethnomusicology. Her research interests include Indigenous practices and performances of music and dance in urban areas throughout the Arctic.[4]
Career
Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk received her bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and her master's degree from the University of Michigan School of Music. [5] After receiving her doctorate in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, she served at McGill University as its first postdoctoral researcher in Indigenous Studies. Subsequently, she was the University of Alaska Anchorage’s first postdoctoral fellow in Alaska Native Studies. She taught ethnomusicology as an adjunct professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage before accepting a position as assistant teaching professor in music at Emory University.[2][6][7]
Trained as a classical violinist, Senungetuk has stated that her goal for her music and dance practice is to challenge “listeners to rethink static images of Indigeneity through expressive media that are at once forward-looking and of the present and that embrace the past”.[8][9] In a 2013 workshop, Senungetuk talks of performing the works of American composer George Rochberg and reinterpreting Rochberg’s titles into the Iñupiaq language with the intention “to show the audience what I’m thinking about, what images or ideas inspire me to make music … Indigenous thinking is on the inside of everything that we do, even though at times it may look like some form of assimilation on the outside.”[10] Senungetuk’s music and dance practice is informed by Indigenous notions of time and a critique of settler-colonialism in classical music studies.[11][9]
Writing
Senungetuk’s written works include an Oxford Bibliography Online article Indigenous Musics of the Arctic (2017), her dissertation Creating a Native Space in the City: An Inupiaq Community in Song and Dance (2017), and the prologue for the book Music and Modernity Among First Peoples of North America (Wesleyan University Press, 2019).[12]
Select exhibitions
A select list of exhibitions in which Senungetuk was involved:
2022 Whitney BiennialRaven Chacon’s‘For Zitkála-Šá’ included 13 scores for various performance artists. Senungetuk was the opening performer of the Whitney series, and one of the 13 artists represented in Chacon’s scores.[14]
Inuit Artist World Showcase (1996), where Senungetuk performed as a classical violinist.[8]
Artistic projects
Qutaanuaqtuit: Dripping Music, a concert-conference and video art installation that connects Senungetuk’s family’s history to several works on the violin.[16][17][18] The performance/installation toured multiple galleries in connection with the exhibitions TUSARNITUT! Music Born of the Cold and Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts.[18][13]
^ ab"Heidi Senungetuk". Emory College of Arts and Sciences Department of Music. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
^ abWright-McLeod, Brian (2005). The Encyclopedia of Native Music: More Than a Century of Recordings from Wax Cylinder to the Internet. University of Arizona Press. pp. 13, 26. ISBN9780816524471.
^ abWoloshyn, Alexa (2020). "Reclaiming the 'Contemporary' in Indigeneity: The Musical Practices of Cris Derksen and Jeremy Dutcher". Contemporary Music Review. 39 (2): 225. doi:10.1080/07494467.2020.1806627. S2CID221666537. Classical violinist Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk (Inupiaq) explains: 'New music challenges listeners to rethink static images of Indigeneity through expressive media that are at once forward-looking and of the present and that embrace the past' (2019, xiv).
^Avery, Dawn (2014). "Native classical: Musical modernities, indigenous research methodologies, and a Kanienkéha (Mohawk) concept of non:wa (now)". University of Maryland, College Park ProQuest Dissertations Publishing: 138. ProQuest1559184509. In recent years I've been performing a suite of Caprice Variations for solo violin from the American composer George Rochberg, and reinterpreting the titles into Iñupiaq language: Moderately Fast, Fantastico becomes Niqsaneaq, or Seal Hunting, and Poco Agitato ma con molto Rubato becomes Ikit, Kumait, Lice, Bugs. My intention in providing a reinterpretation of the titles of each variation is to show the audience what I'm thinking about, what images or ideas inspire me to make music out of the notes provided by Rochberg. Our Indigenous thinking is on the inside of everything that we do, even though at times it may look like some form of assimilation on the outside.
