Chris Newell

Chris Newell (Passamaquoddy) is a lifetime educator. He was born and raised in Motahkmikuhk (Indian Township, ME) and is a proud citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe at Indian Township. Chris's education career began immediately after high school as a substitute teacher during his time as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, Chris and other Native students co-founded the Occom Pond Singers, an intertribal drum group as part of the Native Americans at Dartmouth student organization on campus. Pow wows as well as educational performances became the mainstays of the group. From there, Chris went on to join the Mystic River Singers, an internationally acclaimed and award winning intertribal pow wow drum group based out of Connecticut. For the next two decades, Chris devoted much of his time to Mystic River traveling all over the US and Canada singing at community pow wows and spending time in those communities learning various Native musics. When it came time to return to the field of education, Chris would earn an interdisciplinary Bachelor of General Studies degree at the University of Connecticut and begin working in museum education. He is the Director of Education and Co-Founder of Akomawt Educational Initiative. Chris combines his music and education disciplines together to make presentations that educate, but also entertain. Along with his work in education, Chris has also appeared in feature films and was the Senior Advisor on the documentary Dawnland chronicling the historic first ever government sanctioned Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the State of Maine. His dedication to this work goes back to his experiences at Dartmouth. His discography with Mystic River includes: Mystic River Live at Schemitzun (Sweetgrass Records 1996), Mystic River Live on the Trail (Sweetgrass Records 1996), Straight At Ya (Wacipi Records 1998), Thunder from the East (Wacipi Records 1999), Round Dance Mystic River Style (Red Bear Productions 2001), Evolution (Red Bear Productions 2001), and In Loving Memory (Red Bear Productions 2004). He is a second generation Native educator looking to change our world for the better.