Ed Littlefield

Ed is a freelance percussionist, educator and composer based out of Seattle, WA. He is Lingít from Sitka, Alaska and has released three albums featuring traditional native melodies, which he also arranged into the jazz idiom with the Native Jazz Quartet.

This quartet also represented the United States in South America as “Jazz Ambassadors” through the American Music Abroad program. For film he composed a song for the 2009 Disney movie The Proposal for Betty White’s character and played the percussion score and consulted on indigenous music for the 2022 documentary Exposing Muybridge.

Currently he is working on a three-year project to create the first ever Lingít opera. This project will combine traditional contemporary Lingít melodies inside the western opera genre and will also include an all-indigenous cast.

Ed is also an active educator around the country facilitating artist residencies for students and teachers to help them learn more about Lingít culture and music and traditional ways of knowing.
The concert is established in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy in Finland.