Chad S. Hamill/čnaq’ymi

Chad S. Hamill/čnaq’ymi is director of Indigenous Arts at CalArts. A composer, performer, and ethnomusicologist, Hamill’s scholarship is focused on song traditions of the Interior Northwest US, including those carried by his Spokane ancestors. In tandem with his research and teaching, Hamill is a recording artist and traditional Spokane singer who studied north Indian classical vocal music under Pandit Rajeev Taranath, his beloved teacher of 30 years. In addition to performing within the Indian classical sphere, he has shared the stage with renowned Native American artists R. Carlos Nakai, Keith Secola, and Joanne Shenandoah. He also appeared in the award-winning film Rumble: Indians Who Rocked the World, which provides an historical corrective to erroneous narratives of multiple musical genres that have omitted the essential contributions of Native musicians. His current project, Coyote Makes a World– developed in collaboration with the Brooklyn-based percussion ensemble The Forest– utilizes contemporary Coyote stories within a dynamic rhythmic landscape layered with Native songs and Indian classical vocalizations to confront multiple crises of our times.