Jacqueline Wilson (Yakama), an assistant professor of music at Washington State University, has been named a 2026 Native Performing Arts Fellow by First Peoples Fund, joining a national cohort of 15 Native artists selected for a yearlong program supporting creative growth in music, dance, theater, and live performance.
The fellowship includes a $10,000 grant and professional development support, but for Wilson, the real draw was the program’s emphasis on reflection and artistic development rather than a single, outcome-driven project.
“So much funding is built around proving what you’ll produce,” Wilson said. “This was about where you want to grow, what obstacles you’re facing, and how you want to move forward as an artist.”
A bassoonist who often features Native composers in classical contexts, Wilson said she hopes the fellowship will help her shift her focus — from fitting Indigenous music into existing frameworks to centering her cultural identity in her performance and teaching.
So much funding is built around proving what you’ll produce. This was about where you want to grow, what obstacles you’re facing, and how you want to move forward as an artist.
Jacqueline Wilson, assistant professor
Washington State University
As part of that process, she is spending the year immersed in Yakama stories, history, and values, studying writings by elders and reflecting on how music and performance can help carry those traditions forward across generations.
“I’m interested in asking how performance can be a way of sharing and sustaining those stories,” she said. “And how my work can be more grounded in who I am and where I come from.”
The fellowship also brings Wilson into monthly conversations with other Native artists working across a wide range of genres, an exchange she said she finds especially energizing.
This spring, she will perform a bassoon concerto written for her by Navajo composer Connor Chee with the Poulsbo Symphony on April 12, continuing her efforts to bring contemporary Native voices to the concert stage.
“I’m a musician,” Wilson said. “The question I’m really sitting with now is what that means as a Yakama person.”
