ROBERT MIRABAL
Native American Renaissance Man
Robert Mirabal has been described as a Native American “Renaissance man”. It is a fitting description for this musician, composer, painter, master craftsman, poet, actor, screenwriter, author, horseman, and farmer. But in Mirabal’s case, the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.
An accomplished, renowned Native American flute player and maker from Taos Pueblo in New Mexico, Robert’s flutes have been displayed at the Smithsonian Institute’s Museum of the American Indian. An award-winning musician, Mirabal performs worldwide, sharing flute songs, tribal rock, dance, and storytelling. Mirabal is a two-time Grammy Award winner, has twice been named the Native American Music Award’s Artist of the Year, and has received the Songwriter of the Year award three times. He is also an Album of the Year recipent from Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. His breakthrough PBS musical production, Music From a Painted Cave, remains a benchmark of Native American traditional/rock fusion and storytelling.
Robert, like many of us, took a break over the past couple of years from the road. He spent his time farming and cultivating the land in his beloved Taos, while working on new music woven together with a timely message of agriculture, our relationship to the earth, food justice and the pueblo way. Since returning to the road, he has delivered jaw-dropping performances with his band Rare Tribal Mob at New Mexico’s ¡Globalquerque! (coupled with a daytime workshop that literally left the audience in tears), Lotus Festival, Chandler Center For The Arts, Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts, WYO Theatre, Cedar Culture Center, Music Box Cleveland and more. There is no doubt that Mirabal is ready to return to the world stage with a renewed urgency, a powerful presentation and a band that takes no prisoners.
Robert Mirabal came of age in a traditional family that was broken apart by government relocation policies. "I grew up with my grandparents and mom, an all woman family mostly. That was the classic thing in the '70s, a lot of relocation, children being taken from their homes by government and economics, marriages breaking up. I didn't have much connection with my father."
Growing up, Mirabal spoke the Tiwa language at home and to this day participates in the traditional ways and rituals of his people.
Mirabal remained in Taos to help care for his aging grandparents and went to the Indian school at the pueblo, where he picked up on an array of instruments: ”I learned clarinet, sax, piano, drums, anything I could get my hands on.” he recalls. “But it wasn't till I started playing flute at 18 that music took me over.”
But Robert Mirabal is also a citizen of the world. He has performed around the planet with his band, Rare Tribal Mob, and solo. He has collaborated with a diverse array of artists across a myriad of disciplines.
Mirabal has composed music for Japanese avant-garde modern dancers Eiko and Koma, garnering New York's Dance and Performance Bessie Award for the score. He has had an ongoing relation with avant-garde string quartet ETHEL including collaborative tours, performances at BAM's Next Wave Festival and most recently the CD The River, a cross-cultural and cross-genre tour de force that All About Jazz called “tantalizing dialog… a fine creative music borne out of diverse cultural influences, artistic experimentation and mutual respect”. Along with fellow Grammy-winning artist and Mohican nation singer-songwriter Bill Miller, he created the innovative CD Native Suite: Chants, Dances and the Remembered Earth. The project was both experimental and traditional, featuring flute and percussion as well as pow-wow singing. His groundbreaking band Mirabal featured rock bassist Mark Andes (Spirit, Heart), traditional percussion master Reynaldo Lujan, guitarist Andy York (John Mellencamp, John Fogerty) and acclaimed drummer Kenny Arnoff. Most recently, he has collaborated with Festival Ballet Albuquerque and their artistic director Patricia Dickinson along with legendary New York City Ballet dancer Jock Soto and, at Carnegie Hall, with German born multimedia environmental artist Sibylle Szaggars Redford in her ongoing work Way Of The Rain.
Robert’s music can be heard in a number of television and motion picture productions, most recently the films Prey where he added soundscapes, vocal chant, flutes and percussionist and George RR Martin’s short film adaption of the sci-fi classic Night of The Cooters. Robert is co-scored the soundtrack for the 4-part Hulu series Vow of Silence: the Assassination of Annie Mae released later in November 2024. The soundtrack also includee Robert and Rare Tribal Mob's take on the Redbone classic "Come And Get Your Love".
As a television, film and theatrical performer, Robert is no stranger to transforming himself. He portrayed Tony Lujan (Taos Pueblo), the famed husband of Mable Dodge Lujan, in the films Georgia O’Keeffe, starring three-time Academy Award nominee Joan Allen and Jeremy Irons and Woman Walks Ahead with Jessica Chastain. He has appeared in guest roles on Yellowstone with Kevin Costner, Walker Texas Ranger as well as on Japanese and Italian TV. In August 2012, Robert premiered Po’Pay Speaks in Sante Fe, his one-man show about the leader of the Pueblo Revolt (1680). Robert will be seen starring opposite Whip Hubley in the upcoming film Road To Everywhere, set for release in 2025.
Live Robert is a captivating presence and his performances are at once dynaminc, engaging, mystical, and colorful whether with his band Rare Tribal Mob, the progressive string quartet ETHEL or solo.