Of Navajo-Ute heritage, R. Carlos Nakai is the world’s premier performer of the Native American flute. As an artist, he is an adventurer and risk taker, always giving his musical imagination free rein. Nakai is also an iconoclastic traditionalist who views his cultural heritage not only as a source and inspiration, but also a dynamic continuum of natural change, growth, and adaptation subject to the artist’s expressive needs. His first album, Changes, was released by Canyon Records in 1983, and since then he has released fourty albums with Canyon plus additional albums and guest appearances on other labels. Nakai brought the flute into the concert hall, performing with over 30 symphony and chamber orchestras. He has received two gold records (500,000 units sold) for Canyon Trilogy and Earth Spirit which are the first (and only) Native American recordings to earn this recognition. He has sold over four million albums in the course of his career and been nominated for numerous Grammy® nominations. In 2005 Nakai was inducted into the Arizona Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame.