Fernando Cellicion

When he was asked as a student at Zuni Elementary School in the late '60s to write an essay about what he wanted to be when he grew up, Fernando Cellicion didn't really have to think on the subject too long. He always wanted to be a famous musician, known all over the world. Flash forward to 1996. Cellicion is performing as part of a group of Native American musical artists on-stage at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Would his teacher and fellow students have believed that this would happen? No way. They looked at him as an oversize goofball, certainly not the type of person who would become a celebrity. But he is not the first accomplished musician to have been regarded practically with contempt by his peers, and indeed these sorts of deep feelings usually work their way back up to the surface, providing a musician's work with emotional integrity. This is definitely the case with Cellicion, who has performed a variety of traditional music. However, he is best-known as a recording artist who stands out on the traditional Indian flute, performing in a genre in which there are many copy-cats, insipidly one-dimensional players, and compact discs practically reeking of incense and/or scented candles. "It took a lot of work and not listening to critics, just keeping my focus," Cellicion has said of his career success, which has also led to performing before royalty in France. An artistic background at home surely helped motivate him. His father, Roger Cellicion, founded the dance group the Traditional Zuni Dancers to preserve and pass on his knowledge of Zuni culture to his children. Eventually the group would be taken over by son Fernando, and it would become one of the artistic vehicles that has led to performances all over the world. He began writing his own original...