Join Hopi Cultural Preservation Director Stewart Koyiyumptewa and world flute virtuoso Gary Stroutsos for a concert and discussion on the importance of the Grand Canyon as a cultural landscape and the 1,500-year-old Hopi long flute.
Excerpts from the award-winning film “Ongtupqa,” recently featured on Arizona PBS, will be shown along with live music on flute, Hopi log drum and clay pot percussion on Tuesday, April 23, at 6:30 p.m. in the Great Room at 333 Schnebly Hill Road in Sedona.
This is a Hopi cultural music and video project celebrating the most ancient sounds to emerge from Ongtupqa, the Hopi name for Grand Canyon which translates to “Salt Canyon.”
In addition to a musical concert featuring an ancient Hopi flute and clay drums, originally recorded in the Desert View Watchtower in the Grand Canyon, the program will include the excepts from a video of the Grand Canyon titled “Ongtupqa” that was recently shown in its entirety on Arizona Public Television.
“My only hope is the music and songs we offer will resonate with the world. As Hopi, we were born from the Sipapuni within the Grand Canyon and, when we are done, we return back to the womb of our mother to rejuvenate life of a new beginning. This is the cycle. This is the Hopi way. These are songs about a special place,” Clark Tenakhongva, Hopi vice chairman, said.
This music was created on-site at the watchtower. with reverence for the space that could never be replicated in a music studio far from the views and spirit of Grand Canyon. Ongtupqa is the first recording of its kind for this special location — an acoustic soundscape intended to celebrate and honor the surrounding landscape. This concert will recreate that soundscape in a magical evening.
In 1931, famed archaeologist Earl Halstead Morris [1889–1956, best known for his work at Aztec Ruins in northern New Mexico], then under the auspices of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C., led an expedition to northeastern Arizona. Morris and his team explored 15 cliff dwellings in the Prayer Rock district of the Navajo Nation.
Among the thousands of artifacts collected and documented, were four wooden flutes dated to A.D. 620–670, which placed them in the Basketmaker III period of Ancestral Hopi. These flutes are, in fact, the oldest known wooden flutes yet discovered in North America. In honor of the rare and important artifacts, the cave in which they were discovered, the largest of the 15, is referred to Broken Flute Cave.
The Carnegie Institution transferred the flutes, along with the other artifacts from the expedition, to the Arizona State Museum in 1957. Based on the dating of the site, the flutes are attributed as from the Ancestral Hopi. The current project seeks their return and reintroduction of the sound of the flutes to the Hopi People.
Koyiyumptewa will begin the program with a discussion of the cultural importance of the Grand Canyon to the Hopi. He will also describe the cultural connection to the Hopi flute that will be part of the evening concert.
Stroutsos is a master flute player whose contemplative music and time-honored stories evoke the lands and cultures that he has studied over his 35-year career. His talents flow through a variety of world flutes, but his mastery of the Hopi long flute transports listeners to a spirit of place unlike any other. His music can be heard on the soundtrack of Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, “Lewis and Clark: Journey of the Corps of Discovery,” which led to a command performance at the White House for President Bill Clinton.
The Verde Valley Archaeology Center is sponsoring this special event. The Hopi Tribe is represented on the Advisory Council of the Center. Tickets are $20 at the door or in advance. Additional information and tickets at vvarchcenter.org. All proceeds from this concert go to support the reintroduction of the Hopi long flute tradition.
