When Ty Chiko meets someone new, he identifies himself as a person who is kind, a person who has a disability, a person of color and an immigrant to the United States.
"A lot, if not all of those categories fall under a minority," he said. "I knew early on in my life that I could either take those disabilities or disadvantages and complain and run away, or I could use it as motivation to help somebody else."
Chiko joined Interlochen's faculty as Director of Vocal Music last fall. He visited IPR's Studio A to perform music of Gustav Mahler and Betty Jackson King and chat about his life and work.
Chiko is active in social justice work for disability inclusivity in theater and the performing arts. For him, it's important that spaces are accessible at all times and not only on an as-needed basis.
"People will experience some type of disabling factor at some point in their lives, so the more normalized that support becomes, the better off we all will be," he said. "Are we using sign language interpreters only on special occasions, or are they present at every performance?"
He suggests that able-bodied people learn about how to better support people with disabilities, even if it can be uncomfortable.
Sometimes it just takes going online and reading something and getting better knowledge, honestly. But if we continue to be apathetic, then nothing will change. As soon as you say, "I'm going to be empathetic, and I want to know better, not only for myself, but for the people around me," then that changes a lot of people's experiences on and off the stage.Ty Chiko
He has also spent several years volunteering with the Amputee Coalition of America summer camp program, working with young people with physical disabilities.
"It's one of the top disability advocacy groups in the United States for people with limb loss," Chiko said. "I want to make sure that these young people have the support that I wish I'd had when I was younger."
A native of the Bahamas, Chiko is getting used to winter in northern Michigan. Although he spent four years of undergraduate study in Minnesota, he's still tepid on the snow.
"You learn how to dress for it, but it's still always very cold," he said with a laugh. "What's keeping me here are the students and faculty - it's definitely not the winter."
Chiko is also visual artist and a baker whose microbakery Broken Breadhaus received a World Bread Award recognition in 2021.
He will be presenting a recital called "Mahler and the Music of Black Liberation" on Wednesday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Interlochen's Dendrinos Chapel and Recital Hall with pianist Ya-Ju Chuang. Admission is free, and no tickets are required.
When asked why he decided to pair spirituals with Mahler for this program, Chiko laughed and said, "Why not?"
"In the spirituals and in Mahler's music, there's a desire for spirituality and for human connection," he said. "It's all intertwined, and it's this interconnectedness that made me pair them. When you're pairing composers, you can always find similarities if you look hard enough."
Music performed in IPR's Studio A
(with collaborative pianist Ya-Ju Chuang)
Gustav Mahler, Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen
Betty Jackson King, It's me, O Lord
Michael Culler engineered this edition of Studio A.
IPR's digital content producer is Scott Clemens.
