Album Notes

The contemporary world music trio known as ARC (Gabriel Ayala: guitar; Vince Redhouse: Native American flute and tenor sax; Will Clipman: percussion) brings a sound both fresh and familiar to the world stage. Gabriel Ayala (Yaqui) is at the forefront of a new generation of Native Americans performing classical music on the classical guitar. Two-time Grammy® NomineeVince Redhouse (Navajo) is a leading innovator in adapting the Native American flute to the jazz and classical idioms, and has developed a unique technique for playing it as a chromatic instrument. Together, Ayala and Redhouse perform as the duo Two Nations, and have presented their music at such prestigious venues as The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In the context of ARC, Gabriel’s flamenco and tango-flavored classical guitar is interwoven with Vince’s jazz-inflected Native American flute and tenor saxophone, and both are subtly propelled by the pan-global percussion of four-time Grammy® Nominee Will Clipman. This avant-garde ensemble defies easy categorization, but might best be described as new world fusion. The members of ARC are all highly-accomplished, in-demand performing and recording artists and educators with flourishing solo careers of their own, whose individual excellence has been honored by the Native American Music Awards®, the Aboriginal People’s Choice Music Awards®, and the New Age Reporter Music Awards®, to name a few. Thus, ARC is truly a summit meeting that produces a sonic synergy much greater than the sum of its parts.