RISING: Voiceless Mass by Raven Chacon

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RISING: Voiceless Mass by Raven Chacon

30 May 2026
05:00pm - 07:00pm
FREE
Melbourne City
St Paul's Cathedral, 200 Flinders Street, Narrm/Melbourne

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RMIT University and RISING proudly present Raven Chacon's Pulitzer Prize-winning ensemble piece - a sonic reckoning with history, power and silenced voices.

Find a pew in St Paul's Cathedral and feel instrumental reverberations move through you.

Voiceless Mass won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2022, by composer, performer and installation artist Raven Chacon, a Diné man born in Fort Defiance, Arizona within the Navajo Nation. Raven is the first ever Native American composer to win the prestigious prize. His Voiceless Mass reflects on the history and access to gathering spaces, the lands on which they sit, and the role of sites of colonial power play in suppressing Indigenous voices.

Composed for organ, flute, clarinet, percussion, strings and sine waves – with the organ holding centre presence – the music reverberates, responding to the architecture, and symbolically resonating within the history of the site. Silences linger, and layered timbres build to a reverberant din. A space to consider the futility of giving voice to the voiceless, when ceding space isn't an option for those in power.

There will be a conversation between Raven Chacon and experimental music expert Dr Joel Stern before the performance too. It's a chance to hear about the context of the work and Raven's practice, which spans from Albuquerque's DIY punk and noise scenes to the world stage as a revered installation artist and composer.

Presented by RMIT University and RISING

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Indigenous cultures