Greetings, One & All~
Our monsoon in The Old Pueblo has been a non-soon this year, which has accentuated how precious water is in the desert and how rare the blessing of rain. As we approach the balance-point of the autumnal equinox, may the elements be in harmony in your corner of the global garden, and may this September issue of your A 440 Newsletter signal refreshing seasonal change.
Nakai & Clipman
When the story of world music in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries is written, the name R. Carlos Nakai will be writ large; it is one of the great honors of my career to have been Nakai’s percussionist for thirty years, and to continue to have the opportunity to perform with him. As has been the case with many of our venues around the world, our next two performances will both be unique in different ways.
In an article on The TANK Center for Sonic Arts in The New Yorker Alex Ross writes, “In my experience, music has never seemed closer to nature. . . . One road to the musical future now runs through Rangely.” Nakai & Clipman will no doubt extend that natural musical future further into unexplored realms of improvisational sonic artistry in their September 8th concert.
TANK info & tickets
https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3570065
photo courtesy Robert Doyle Photography / Canyon Records
On September 13th, 2015 Nakai & Clipman performed a benefit concert to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the historic Sherbino Theater and help raise funds for its modernization and refurbishment. Almost exactly three years later, we’ll return to Ridgway on September 6th to fill the Sherbino’s new stage with music from our GRAMMY-nominated CD Awakening the Fire.
Sherbino info & tickets
https://sherbino.org/events/music/371-awakening-the-fire-r-carlos-nakai-and-will-clipman
Heart Dance
Meanwhile, one of the next chapters in contemporary instrumental music is being written by Sherry Finzer & Will Clipman. We have embarked on a series of elemental flute-and-drum duets, the first four of which are being dropped as singles on the last Friday of August through November, while we compile an album’s worth of sensuously soothing sound. Evening at Angor Wat dropped on August 31st and Kilauea Rain will drop on September 28th. All these singles will be available on iTunes and all the usual streaming platforms. Stay tuned for more singles and the complete album!
Enjoy this brilliant video created by Sherry Finzer:
Studio & Radio
Finzer & Clipman will be back in the studio at Clamsville Productions in Chandler AZ on September 20th to continue recording new material for the above-mentioned duo project. Once we wrap that session, we’ll head across the Valley of the Sun to Scottsdale AZ for a performance and interview on AZRADIO LIVE! at 5 PM PT.
tune in at
Facebook Email
Those of you who–like me–do not frequent social media will be as delighted as I am that Facebook now offers an email contact option. When next you visit my Facebook Artist Page–which is informational rather than interactive–you may now contact me directly at my personal email address simply by clicking on the Send Email button. I hope to hear from you soon, and you’ll hear back from me with a prompt personal email!
Beats & Tweets
The new website for the 2019 Solstice Flute Festival is now up and running, and early registration is being offered with some tasty enticements. Yours truly will be the Special Guest Artist there, so expect plenty of pan-global percussive grooviness along with the mellifluous melodies of many Native American flutes to waft across the Utah skies!
Info & Early Registration
https://www.solsticeflute.org/index.html
Poem of the Month
Signs, signals, signatures. . . they’re all around us all the time, yet we sometimes don’t notice them or take time to interpret their significance. Your September Poem of the Month is an attempt to observe closely and reflect clearly upon a series of actual events that reveal a larger symbolic pattern. . . of course, the final stanza is yours to write!
Signs
Dragonfly
with folded wings
of golden glass
how prayerfully
you let in light
Pipistrelle
your zigzag signature
across the setting crescent moon
foretells the vast migrations
yet to come
Lizard
motionless beneath the sage
how clear your gaze
how lightning-quick
your strike
Wind
can you find
the one
amidst the polyrhythmic
swirl of chimes
Rain
you’ve made your point
by staying gone so long
now if you would
be so kind as to fall
Venus
you’re in on this too
escorting the mystery
down black escarpments
to a mythic realm beyond
© Will Clipman 2018
Photo of the Month
I’m no photographer, but even my unskilled eye can appreciate the magnificence of the setting sun piercing an advancing monsoon storm front. Alas, like so many this season, these thunderheads delivered their precious cargo of rain in another valley beyond ours. Still, the blessing of natural beauty is there to be gratefully received and shared. Enjoy!
~May the beauty and balance of autumn
be yours throughout the coming season~
Sometimes the treasure one has been seeking far and wide is buried right in one’s own backyard.
~Guillaume Henri
Will Clipman
poet ~ percussionist ~ maskmaker ~ storyteller ~ performing artist ~ educator
www.willclipman.com
williamclipman@aol.com
www.facebook.com/willclipman
520.591.0776
