Öngtupqa: Sacred Music of the Hopi Tribe

Öngtupqa is the Hopi name for the Grand Canyon (which translates to ‘Salt Canyon’). Musicians Clark Tenakhongva, Matthew Nelson and Gary Stroutsos have made an acoustic soundscape intended to honour the surrounding landscape of this sacred place through music created on site. It was recorded inside its most significant structure, the Desert View Watchtower, inspired by ancestral Puebloan ruins, in a one-night-only session.

Tenakhongva sang original compositions in his native language, Nelson kept rhythm on clay pot drums while Stroutsos improvised on his flute, a replica of one of the instruments found in Broken Flute Cave, lost to the Hopi people for more than 500 years. The result is a soundscape that approximates the way Hopi music may have sounded more than 1,300 years ago. Equally introspective and sublime, some might find it reminiscent of Japanese shakuhachi music. This is music to absorb, more than to listen to. Wander in a world and times where music crossed lands and oceans as cosmic vibrations.