RC3: The R. Carlos Nakai Trio – Live in Concert
October 18th, 7pm, 2025 |
MSA Annex, 267 South Avenida del Convento, Tucson, AZ
Experience a powerful night of genre-defying music with RC3:
The R. Carlos Nakai Trio.
The latest iteration of the Nakai sound gives complete harmonic and melodic freedom to the maestro’s relentless inventiveness, enveloping the subtle timbre of the Native American flute in the spacious yet irresistibly danceable grooves of AmoChip Dabney’s multi-instrumentalism and Will Clipman’s pan-global percussion. With 20 GRAMMY Nominations and well over 100 albums among them, these three musicians together bring unparalleled breadth and depth to their live performances.
Tickets:
General Admission: $25
VIP: $40 (includes free drink + meet & greet)
Streaming Ticket - tune in from anywhere in the world
👉 Reserve now:
https://www.viewcy.com/e/rc_nakai_trio_in_co
Join us for an unforgettable evening of music that connects spirit, culture, and rhythm in the heart of the desert.
R. Carlos Nakai is the world’s premier performer of the Native American flute. Nakai’s first album Changes was released by Canyon Records in 1983, and since then he has released over forty albums with Canyon, plus additional albums and guest appearances on other labels. In addition to his educational workshops and residencies, Nakai has appeared as a soloist throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan, and has collaborated with flutist Paul Horn, harp-guitarist William Eaton, pianist Peter Kater, composer James DeMars, producer Billy Williams, multi-instrumentalist AmoChip Dabney and percussionist Will Clipman, among many others. The famed choreographer Martha Graham used Nakai’s second album Cycles in her last work Night Chant. Nakai contributed music to the major motion pictures New World (New Line) and Geronimo (Columbia). He founded the R. Carlos Nakai Quartet to explore the intersection of ethnic and jazz idioms, and brought the Native American flute into the classical concert hall, performing with over fifteen symphony and chamber orchestras. Nakai was a featured soloist on the Philip Glass composition, Piano Concert No. 2: After Lewis & Clark, premiered by the Omaha Symphony; and a lead soloist in the premiere of Guadalupe, Our Lady of the Roses, an opera by James DeMars. Always in search of opportunities for cross-cultural collaboration, Nakai has recorded and performed with Tibetan flutist and chanter Nawang Khechog, Hawaiian slack-key guitarist and singer Keola Beamer, Israeli cellist Udi Bar-David, and the Wind Travelin’ Band, a traditional Japanese ensemble from Kyoto. Nakai earned an RIAA Platinum Record for Canyon Trilogy and a Gold Record for Earth Spirit, the only Native American recordings to achieve these milestones. He has sold over four million albums worldwide. His eleven GRAMMY nominations include his duo album with Will Clipman Awakening the Fire. He has also won eight Native American Music Awards. A Navy veteran, Nakai earned a Master’s Degree in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona. He was awarded the Arizona Governor’s Arts Award in 1992, and an honorary doctorate from Northern Arizona University in 1994. In 2005 Nakai was inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame. His book, The Art of the Native American Flute, is a guide to performing the traditional cedar flute.
https://rcarlosnakai.com/
AmoChip Dabney performs on bass, keyboards and acoustic guitar, and has been known to play three saxophones (soprano, alto and tenor) at once. He plays with many different groups in the Southwest, leads his own dance band The AmoSphere, and performs a one-man show utilizing his entire multi-instrumental arsenal. Amo has recorded over fifty albums. In 2005, at his Completely Bare Studio in Tucson, Arizona, he composed for, performed on, produced, recorded and mixed the GRAMMY nominated album People of Peace as a member of The R. Carlos Nakai Quartet. This recording was also the 2006 Native American Music Award winner for Best World Music Album. Amo has created and produced many other collaborations including Edge of the Century, a duo album with R. Carlos Nakai. Again in 2006, he was a GRAMMY Nominee in the Best New Age Album category for Beyond Words, a project he co-produced at his CBS studio with Gentle Thunder and Will Clipman. Amo is multiple TAMMIE Award winner and has been inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum. In 2012 he released a genre-defying solo CD, Not Out of Words…Improvisational Suite for Piano to critical acclaim on his own MicroChip label.
https://amochip.me/
Will Clipman began playing his father’s drums and his mother’s piano at the age of three, and has mastered a pan-global palette of percussion instruments in addition to the traditional drumset since playing his first professional gig at the age of fourteen. His seven GRAMMY nominations include his solo album Pathfinder, his duo album with R. Carlos Nakai Awakening the Fire, and his quartet album People of Peace with Nakai, AmoChip Dabney and Mary Redhouse. Will is a three-time Native American Music Award winner, a Canadian Aboriginal Music Award winner, a New Age Reporter Music Award Winner, a Zone Music Reporter Award winner, and a two-time TAMMIE Award winner, and has been inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum for his contributions to the musical community in his hometown. He has recorded over seventy albums for multiple labels, including thirty-seven for Canyon Records, the world’s leading producer and distributor of Native American music. Will has performed and recorded with R. Carlos Nakai in duo, trio and quartet configurations for thirty years, and has worked with many other internationally acclaimed artists and ensembles. He has toured throughout the United States including Alaska and Hawaii, as well as in Canada, Germany, Russia and Morocco. Will’s solo performance and workshop Planet of Percussion takes audiences of all ages on a participatory tour of world music.
https://www.willclipman.com/
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