Steven Alvarez (Mescalero Apache, Yaqui, Upper Tanana Athabascan) comes to Anchorage from the San Francisco Bay Area where he was active as both a performer and educator. Raised in a multi-ethnic military family, Steven had the opportunity to grow up in and around many diverse cultures including Hispanic, Native American, Hawaiian, Japanese, and all three coasts of the continental U.S. He graduated from San Jose State University with Bachelor of Arts degrees in Music (Voice and Percussion) and History and a minor in Philosophy.
An artist with hands in many mediums, he works professionally as a percussionist, vocalist, stage actor, film and stage producer and music educator. His work as a film producer includes: Asveq, The Walrus Hunt; Living From the Land and Sea; Beyond Boundaries, An Artist Exchange; Native Stories of the Heavens; The Box of Wisdom Totem Pole; Growing Up Native in Alaska and In This World, a Native American Music Award (NAMA) winning music video for the Native band Medicine Dream. Many of his films have been screened at film festivals throughout the U.S. and Canada. He also served as the Project Director for Drums of the North, a traditional Yup’ik music CD. He is currently producing a film on the Alaskan Native and Inuit games and regularly performs an innovative theater piece that couples film with live storytelling and song which recently debuted at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington D.C. www.thecharlesagency.com
Steven began working professionally as a musician at the age of 16 and worked his way through college performing as both a singer and percussionist. As a percussionist, he worked for seven years with the Monterey Symphony and the Santa Cruz Symphony Orchestras. He has freelanced as a percussionist and vocalist both in the San Francisco and Anchorage areas. As a guest artist for the Monterey Jazz Festival in 1983, he performed with jazz artist Bobby Hutcherson. Steven was also a guest artist for the Anchorage Festival of Music (AFM) in 1997 and then served as AFM’s Executive Director for three seasons. Steven has shared the stage with Lloyd Bridges, Doc Sevrinson, Jethro Tull and others and has worked with numerous bands, combos and pit orchestras. He has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe, has recorded local and national radio and television commercials jingles as both a vocalist and percussionist which includes the 15” Hershey’s Kisses Christmas spot that has run annually for 18 years.
Steven spent fifteen years as a music educator for both vocal and instrumental music, from elementary through high school, and also served as an adjunct instructor at the University of Alaska, Anchorage for two years.
Steven has music directed over 30 theater productions and is one of the founding directors of Theater Artists United (TAU); an Anchorage based Theater Company which has produced Cabaret, Rocky Horror, Hair, Little Shop of Horrors and Evita. He recently co-produced the world premier of Echoes, with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, a multi-media symphonic piece conceived by him, which couples the indigenous song and dance of Hawaii, Alaska and Native America with a symphony orchestra. The piece was also performed in Washington DC at the NMAI. He has performed on stage in several musical theater productions, having played the roles of Jinx/Forever Plaid, Judas Iscariot and Jesus/ Jesus Christ Superstar, Sky Masterson/ Guys & Dolls, and recently music directed and performed the role of Che for TAU’s production of Evita. He has also performed at the Heard Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum, for the Institute of American Indian Art, NMAI and with the Air Force Band of the Pacific.
He currently performs regularly as a percussionist with the Anchorage Symphony Orchestra, the Anchorage Opera and Anchorage Concert Chorus. He also works with Native poet and musician Joy Harjo, Canyon Records recording artists R. Carlos Nakai and Medicine Dream. Steven recently began working with Taagi, Three Sides, a Native classical trio with Mohawk musicians Dawn Avery on cello and Tara-Louise Montour on violin. He also performed with the Coast Orchestra, an all Native chamber group and performed as a solo artist at the Kennedy Center and at the NMAI’s Classical Native Series in Washington D.C.
As an administrator, Steven has directed private music and dance schools, after school cultural education programs and art organizations for over fourteen years. He currently serves as the Director of Strategic Initiatives and Media for the Alaska Native Heritage Center where he is responsible for developing educational and public programming, serving as the primary liaison to the Center’s national partners, coordinating special projects, producing cultural film documentaries and developing a new media department.