Lakota youth compose original music for symphony orchestra

SIOUX FALLS – Sy Bordeaux, a 17-year-old Sicangu Lakota musician and composer, had his original music composition performed by the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) at a recent concert.

The orchestra performed Bordeaux’s original music composition titled “Anxiety” at the Beats and Beethoven Concert held over the weekend at the Washington Pavilion in Sioux Falls. Bordeaux composed the piece when he attended the 2024 Music Composition Academy at Black Hills State University in Spearfish. 

Bordeaux was mentored by Navajo musician Michael Begay, who taught him how to create music for a string quartet. The resultant composition is an intense, heart-stopping musical journey through the “Anxiety” experience.

The orchestra also performed an original composition by Kili Cole, a 15-year-old Lakota cellist of Rapid City. Cole’s piece “Unfinished,” tells the story of the pain and hardships of the Indigenous boarding school era.

Her Unfinished took influence from an in-progress sculpture by Dale Lamphere, which will be installed in Rapid City, SD in June 2025 to commemorate the lives of Native American children lost at the Rapid City Indian Boarding School (1898-1933). The title Unfinished is in tribute to the ‘unfinished’ lives of those children.

According to a press release, the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra (SDSO) and Music Director Delta David Gier announced complete programming for the January 25, 2025 concerts, which center earth’s changing climate and humans’ ingenuity toward, and compassion for, each other and the planet.

“We welcome this opportunity to share these rich, sonically diverse works – familiar and new – which offer hope and inspiration. Ted Wiprud is instrumental in our ongoing commitment to support young people and we feel it only right to introduce two student composers, Sy Bordeaux (Sisseton) and Kili Cole (Rapid City) who represent the future,” stated Gier.

Both of these works were written in July 2024 during the SDSO Music Composition Academy and premiered by the SDSO’s Dakota String Quartet in September 2024. With a few minor tweaks, the pieces have been adapted for performance by the full string orchestra.

“Gary Antoine (Sicangu guitarist and educator) was Sy’s music teacher,” stated Sy’s Mother Natasha D. Bordeaux. “Gary was the first to put a guitar in his hand last September, and he just excelled at it. A few months later, he is composing symphony pieces! I’m so happy he has found his purpose and his calling. He is now graduating a year early and gearing up for college.”

Bordeaux is a senior at Sisseton High School. He plans to major in music at the University of Utah and aspires to a career in music production. He plays electric guitar and bass.

Bordeaux is the son of Natasha D. Bordeaux of Sisseton, the grandson of Earl Bordeaux Jr. of Sioux Falls, Terry and Sharon Brandis of Belle Fourche, and Clarabelle Leading Cloud of White River.