Album: Night Chants – Native American Flute
Artist: Gary Stroutsos
CD #: EUCD2777
Label: ARC Music
Genre: Native American folk music
Release: 23rd March, 2018
Total playing time: 66:07 min.
‘Night Chants – Native American Flute’ is collection of 16 original compositions by multi-instrumentalist Gary Stroutsos expressing the ancient traditions of sacred and secular music, that have been passed down through generations of families and communities. As Gary says in his own words,
“For me it has been an honour to have the opportunity to have studied, recorded, performed with so many diverse Native American people over my lifetime. At this stage of my career it has become a ‘lifeway’ to continue to share in a good way, wherever I am asked, the many time-honoured stories and songs that were so graciously shared with me. It is like a dream any of this ever happened to me but I am glad it did and it makes me smile to keep the music going not for myself but so the music can live on. We make a better world through story and song creative positive bonds.”
On ‘Night Chants – Native American Flute’, Gary Stroutsos performs on the full range of flutes including the traditional Dakota 5-hole Native American cedar flute (1, 5, 7); Native American contemporary 6-hole wood drone flute (2, 13); Hopi southwest desert rim flute (3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10), clay aerophones (10), traditional Dakota 6-hole cedar elk flute (11), river cane wind whistles (11), contemporary Native American 6-hole wood flute (12), traditional Dakota 6-hole cedar flute (14) and traditional Navajo 6-hole cedar flute (16). On ‘Night Chants – Native American Flute’, Gary Stroutsos is accompanied by percussion including African clay pots.
Over a career spanning three decades, Gary has brought his unique music and stories to audiences throughout North America, as well as Japan and Korea. He can be heard on the soundtrack of Ken Burns’ PBS documentary Lewis and Clark - The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, which led to a command performance at the White House for President Bill Clinton in 1997. He is also showcased on Jan Nickman’s 2009 film Living Temples, an intimate study of man’s relationship to nature. Gary has been featured on NPR broadcasts, New York Evening at the Pops, and the syndicated radio programme Echoes. His albums Distant Shores, Winds of Honor, The Native Heart, and Echoes of Canyon de Chelly with Navajo Elder Paul Thompson, have all received national acclaim as benchmark recordings of Native American flute music.
In over thirty recordings, including a number of recordings made on location from the plains of the Dakotas, to the canyonlands of the Southwest, to the shores of the Pacific Coast, Gary Stroutsos has created a body of work which expresses a passion for “sound travelling” or music without borders.
‘Night Chants – Native American Flute’ contains pure, haunting American Indian flute music (solo or with occasional percussion) that touches the soul. Music played on a variety of Dakota, Hopi, Navajo flutes expressing joy, sorrow, love and belief. ‘Night Chants – Native American Flute’ is released internationally through ARC Music on 23rd March 2018.
For more information please contact: media@arcmusic.co.uk Tel: +44 (0) 1342 770 486 | ARC Music Productions International | PO Box 111 | East Grinstead | West Sussex | RH19 4FZ | UK www.arcmusic.co.uk