Brandi Berry Benson forged two great passions, her music and her Chickasaw heritage, into a premiere of five new works she wrote and recently performed in Chicago with other First Americans.
The works were performed under the title “Songs of the Chickasaws: Epic Tales Told Through Music.”
Benson is a classically trained violinist and bluegrass fiddler who earned a bachelor’s degree in violin performance at the University of North Texas and a master’s at Indiana University. She is currently teaching courses in baroque music and Native American music at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
Benson is also a faculty affiliate with the Northwestern Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) in Chicago, serving as its first School of Music faculty affiliate.
She admits she did not immediately connect the musical dots of her chosen classical and folk genres to First American music.
“When I was younger, I couldn’t see how Native music intersects with baroque and classical music,” Benson said. “But as it turned out, there was quite a lot of intersection.
“Over the pandemic, I got really interested in researching more about the music side of my Chickasaw family and how it connects. I grew up hearing the stories of my family ancestors but had never really ventured into researching the music surrounding it.”
Northwestern University’s CNAIR awarded her a research fellowship, encouraging her to invest time in researching the influence of the Five Tribes on early American music.
“I wanted to do more research related to North American music, and I thought, where better to start than with my family’s origins and continue some of the genealogy research my great-grandfather, Ernest Leonard Thaxton Sr., had done. He was my last relative on the Dawes Roll before Oklahoma became a state,” she said.
Benson said several of her great-grandfather’s handwritten letters are housed in the Holisso: The Center for Study of Chickasaw History and Culture on the Chickasaw Cultural Center campus in Sulphur, Oklahoma, along with two large binders connected to her family’s history.
“He did genealogy research the old-fashioned way, writing to people and going to places. His family moved out of Indian Territory to the Texas Panhandle, but he was always going back to the Council Museum [in Tishomingo, Oklahoma].”
Benson said her research revealed several personal revelations too poignant to dismiss as simple coincidences.
“There were several full-circle moments as I was doing the research,” she said. “One was my great-grandfather’s wife, who was from Illinois, and I live in Chicago now. My mom likes to joke that I returned back to the people somehow.
“I remember my first trip to the Council House Museum and seeing a display about Bloomfield Academy where my third great-grandmother had gotten married. On that display, I saw a photo of a Bloomfield Academy music class of a dozen or so Chickasaw women holding violins, mandolins and guitars. That was a full circle moment for me. I thought maybe that’s the reason I was drawn to the violin.”
Benson said there is a common misconception about the early days of American music and what influenced it.
“Most people think the Europeans came in and influenced us,” she said. “I don’t think that the narrative is correct, because the Native influence is very strong in early American music.”
Benson said at times it seemed as if her great-grandfather’s hand was directing her.
“I was in the middle of the research and had gone to the Council House Museum and hit a wall trying to decide where to go next. I felt a nudge to go back to the Chickasaw Cultural Center, and I know that wasn’t an accident because when I went there, I was able to talk with Jesse Lindsey for about an hour.”
Lindsey, who died in October 2025, was known for being a master artist for his deer toe shakers, stickball sticks and, to Benson’s great interest, beautiful flute playing.
She said talking with Lindsey put something of a bow on her research.
“That illuminated a lot for me,” she said. “The music, my family — it all came together.”
The result was the “Songs of the Chickasaws: Epic Tales Told Through Music,” performed Feb. 28 and March 1 at The CheckOut in Chicago, a chamber music venue that opened in September of last year.
The pieces feature music Benson wrote centered on who she considers five of her Chickasaw heroes. They are Tishominko, the great Chickasaw leader who led in the Removal to Indian Territory; former Chickasaw Nation Governor Jonas Wolfe, whom she says is possibly a brother of her fourth great-grandmother; Sadie Humes, co-author of the first Chickasaw dictionary; Tessie “Lushanya” Mobley [later Lushanya Vinay], a renowned 20th-century opera singer; and Jesse Lindsey.
“Jesse’s passing this past fall makes performing this work about him even more meaningful,” Benson said.
The presentation includes two singers who also narrate, a flute player on both Native flute and traverso [a predecessor to the modern flute], a string quartet with two violins, a viola, a cello and an Indigenous percussionist.
“The percussionist plays hand drums, striking sticks and rattles as the piece calls for it,” she said.
“I really tried to keep with the traditions when the Native flute would be used, when a hand drum would be used and when a rattle would be used,” Benson said. “The striking sticks are references to war dances. It’s a blend of Western and Indigenous instruments.
“Every project I do, I push myself to another limit, and this certainly was one of those for me as well. I’m hoping to do more. There are so many rich stories within the Chickasaw Nation. I’m hoping to write more pieces like this to bring out more of the stories.”