Robert Mirabal

For the past ten years, two-time Grammy winner Robert Mirabal has dominated the Native American music category like none other. In that time he has created more than a dozen traditional flute albums, rock, and spoken word CDs that have earned him most every honor awarded in the genre, including two Grammys for best Native American Albums of the Year (2006, 2008). His 2001 PBS Special Music From a Painted Cave remains one of public television’s most popular fundraisers of all time. But using music to connect with his audience is only one of Mirabal’s many gifts, and his poetic new novel, Running Alone in Photographs, (Red Willow Press, ISBN 978-0-615-23033-7) opens a window onto contemporary American Indian life not seen before. On October 1st from 6 to 7:30 pm, Mirabal brings his one-man show "Traditional Minds, Modern Lives" to the Rubloff Auditorium at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. The performance will blend music, spoken word, and compelling visuals in presenting the experience of a contemporary man still living a traditional life. Writing in a style that blends memoir and historical fiction, Mirabal’s tale is set in Saint Teresa Pueblo in northern New Mexico, and is the coming-of-age story of Reyes Wind, a young musician who returns to her ancestral home for the funeral of her grandmother. Dealing with themes of personal responsibility and empowerment, the novel focuses on worlds in transition—the struggle between tribal identity and life in modern society—and the courage and grace required of her to live fully in each. The book is being hailed as a female, contemporary The Catcher in the Rye meets Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. “Reyes has faith in the power of the unknown,” says author Robert Mirabal, “and in her journey of self-discovery.