Will Clipman

percussionist • poet • performing artist




A drummer since the age of three, Will has mastered a pan-global palette of percussion in addition to the traditional drumset. Will has recorded over fifty albums, including twenty-one for Canyon Records, where he is regarded as the house percussionist. Will performs and records with R. Carlos Nakai, William Eaton, Nawang Khechog, Gentle Thunder, Mary Redhouse, Ash Dargan, Robert Tree Cody, Randy Wood, Arvel Bird, and Amber Norgaard, among many other internationally-acclaimed artists. Will is a four-time GRAMMY® Nominee and a two-time Native American Music Award® Winner, and has been inducted into the Tucson Musicians Museum in honor of his long-standing contributions to the musical community in his hometown. His latest Canyon Records release is a solo album, Pathfinder.



A poet since the age of six, Will has published a book, Dog Light (Wesleyan University Press) and has been featured in numerous anthologies and literary journals. His writing has been honored with the Whiffen Poetry Prize, the Academy of American Poets Margaret Sterling Award, the Tucson/Pima Arts Council Poetry Fellowship, and the Arizona Commission on the Arts Award of Merit for Poetry. His poem The Quiet Power is the official Dedicatory Poem of the Tucson Main Library.



Will is also an accomplished maskmaker and storyteller. His solo performance, Myths & Masks® integrates his original mask art, mythopoetic storytelling, and multicultural music. As an arts educator, Will provides hands-on interdisciplinary workshops, lecture-demonstrations, and full-length residencies to elementary, middle, and high schools, community colleges, art galleries, libraries, adult prisons, juvenile detention facilities, senior centers, parks and recreation programs, and hospitals. His service to the community as an arts educator has been honored with the Arizona Commission on the Arts Decade of Distinguished Service Award and a Governor’s Arts Award Nomination. Will holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree from Syracuse University, and a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Arizona.






for more insights into Will’s creative world, please visit www.willclipman.com