Timothy Archambault facts for kids

Timothy Archambault (born in 1971) is an American architect, a person who designs buildings, and a talented musician. He is known for playing the Native American flute. He currently lives in Miami, Florida.

Timothy Archambault's Early Life and School

Timothy Archambault was born on February 9, 1971, in a town called Willimantic, in Connecticut.

His family background is very interesting. He is part of the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation and also has Métis heritage. These are important Indigenous groups in North America.

He went to the Rhode Island School of Design, which is a famous art and design college. There, he earned two degrees: one in architecture and one in fine arts. While studying there, he also took classes in music theory at Brown University.

Timothy Archambault's Musical Journey

Archambault started playing the Native American flute in 1989. He spent a lot of time studying the oldest recordings of this instrument, some of which date back to the early 1900s.

Learning the Native American Flute

He learned from other skilled Native American flutists, like Kevin Locke (from the Lakota tribe) and Edmund Wayne Nevaquaya (from the Comanche tribe). He also collected songs from his Kichesipirini heritage. He got these songs from elders in Canada and from old wax cylinder recordings made long ago.

Modern Flute Music

Besides playing traditional music, Timothy Archambault also performs contemporary classical music on the Native American flute. This means he plays new, complex music that uses many different notes, called a chromatic scale.

He has played music by Native American composers such as David Yeagley, George Quincy, and Raven Chacon. His recording of Yeagley's piece, Wessi vah-peh, which is for Native American flute and orchestra, was released in 2008. He performed this with the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra Katowice.

Archambault was the first person to use an old flute technique called the "warble" in modern classical music. This technique makes a single flute note sound like it splits into a vibrating, multi-layered sound.

Recording and Collaborations

In 2008, he planned to record a solo album of music by David Yeagley called Suite Tragique. This album is dedicated to the Kichesipirini Algonquin First Nation. He also worked on a song with the Navajo composer Raven Chacon, using traditional Anishinaabeg musical notation.

He recorded an orchestral work called The Choctaw Diaries by the Choctaw composer George Quincy. This was released in June 2008. In the same year, he joined a group called The Coast Orchestra, which is a Native American orchestra.

Composing His Own Music

As a composer, Timothy Archambault also writes his own music. In 2007, he wrote a piece for a solo cello for a Mohawk cellist. This piece, called Anoki, was released on a CD in 2008.

He is a member of the First Nations Composer Initiative, a group that supports Indigenous musicians. He performed at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. in November 2006. In August 2007, he recorded traditional Kichesipirini flute songs for the museum's archives. In 2008, he helped choose which American Indian musicians would receive grants from the First Nations Composer Initiative.

Timothy Archambault's Architecture Career

Timothy Archambault has also had a successful career in architecture. He lived in Beijing, China, where he was a project manager for a company called Office for Metropolitan Architecture.

Designing Famous Buildings

Before working in Beijing, he was a Project Architect in Rotterdam and New York City. He helped design several well-known buildings:

• The Prada Soho Store.
• The Lehmann Maupin Gallery in Chelsea, Manhattan.
• The Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre at the Dallas Center for the Performing Arts in Dallas, Texas.

Before joining OMA in 1999, he worked for other architecture firms. He helped design the Pratt Stabile Hall Dormitory in New York. He also worked for Frank O. Gehry and Associates in Los Angeles. There, he contributed to the designs for the Samsung Museum of Contemporary Art and the famous Walt Disney Concert Hall.