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Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk
Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk
Born	Fairbanks, Alaska
Nationality	American
Education	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
Known for	Musician, educator

Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk (/səˈnʌŋɡɛtˌʌk/ sə-NUNG-ɡet-uk)^[1] is an Inupiaq scholar of ethnomusicology and a musician. She is the daughter of Ronald Senungetuk and Turid Senungetuk and granddaughter of Helen and Willie Senungetuk, and her family roots originate from Wales (Kiŋigin), Alaska. Senungetuk spent her childhood in Fairbanks, where her father founded the Native Art Center and acted as head of the Department of Art at the University of Alaska.^[2]^[3]

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]

Senungetuk has held positions as a violinist with the Louisiana Philharmonic of New Orleans, the Tulsa Philharmonic, the Breckenridge Music Festival in Colorado, and the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra.^[7] She has performed as a violinist at the Inuit Artist’s World Showcase in Inukjuak, Canada, and at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. in their Classical Native Series. Senungetuk also performed at the National Gallery of Art and the American Museum of Natural History as first violinist with The Coast Orchestra. She is also a member of the Kingikmiut Dancers and Singers of Anchorage.^[5]

Musical practice

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:

Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts (2019-2023), curated by Candice Hopkins and Dylan Robinson. The exhibition toured multiple galleries, including the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery.^[13]
2022 Whitney Biennial Raven 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]
TUSARNITUT! Music Born of the Cold (2022-2023), curated by Jean-Jacques Nattiez, Lisa Qiluqqi Koperqualuk, and Charissa von Harringa and organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.^[15]
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]

References

^ "Art Installation/Performance: "Qutaanuaqtuit: Dripping Music": Indigenizing Music Performance". YouTube. 1 October 2021. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
^ ^a ^b "Shareholder Spotlight: Dr. Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk". Bering Straights Native Corporation. 18 December 2018. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
^ "Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk". Kamloops Art Gallery. Retrieved 31 December 2022.
^ "Tamaani Ituinaatut - We Are Still Here: Indigenous Musics of the Arctic". Dartmouth Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
^ ^a ^b Senungetuk, Heidi. "Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk". Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
^ "Faculty | Department of Music | University of Alaska Anchorage". University of Alaska Anchorage. 2021. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
^ ^a ^b "Heidi Senungetuk". Emory College of Arts and Sciences Department of Music. Retrieved 5 December 2023.
^ ^a ^b Wright-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. ISBN 9780816524471.
^ ^a ^b Woloshyn, 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. S2CID 221666537. 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. ProQuest 1559184509. 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.
^ Levy, Dana (2020). "We Are Never New: "Transing" the time of music through the life and works of Beverly Glenn-Copeland". University of Puget Sound Sound Ideas: 18.
^ "Heidi Aklaseaq Senungetuk | Semantic Scholar". Semantic Scholar. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
^ ^a ^b "Soundings: An Exhibition in Five Parts". Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. Retrieved 29 December 2022.
^ Pyron, Jennifer (2 August 2022). "The Whitney Biennial 2022 Review: Raven Chacon's 'For Zitkála-Šá'". OperaWire. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
^ ""TUSARNITUT! Music Born of the Cold" now on view at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts". Art Daily. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
^ Dunlevy, T'Cha (10 November 2022). "Inuit music and art collide in new MMFA exhibition". The Montreal Gazette.
^ Charron-Leclerc, Félix. "Inuit art in the spotlight in Montreal" (PDF). Nunavut News. pp. A7. Retrieved 30 December 2022.
^ ^a ^b "QUTAANUAQTUIT : Dripping Music". Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Retrieved 30 December 2022.