John Two-Hawks

John Two-Hawks is an Oglala Lakota Native American musician who has been performing professionally in live concerts since the early 1990s. He sings and plays many instruments, but is best known as a pioneer and virtuoso player of the Native American flute. To date, he has produced sixteen CD recordings and a DVD, and has also written a number of books filled with Native American wisdom to accompany some of his CDs. He often guest lectures for schools and universities on Native American history and culture, and he has shared time with Presidents, Senators and Movie Stars as a featured speaker.
He is featured as the Native American vocalist and cedar flute player for the song "Creek Mary's Blood" on the Nightwish album Once. He also appeared on Nightwish's End of an Era CD/DVD, a recording of their live performance in Helsinki, Finland on October 21, 2005. There he performed "Stone People" from his album Honor as a prelude for "Creek Mary's Blood", which he then performed with the band in front of a sold-out audience of 12,000. It is to be noted that Nightwish never plays the song without Two-Hawks.
Other collaborations include concerts and recordings with Celtic singer and flutist Seamus Byrne, classical guitarist Sir Charles Hammer, pianist Bastiaan Pot and guitarist/bass player Van Adams. He composed and performed the music and sound effects for the accompanying audio CD for a children's book by Sicangu Lakota writer Joseph M. Marshall III and Yankton Sioux illustrator Joseph Chamberlain. Two-Hawks was also the co-producer of the book. John Two-Hawks was the featured musician in the musical score for the HBO production of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee which originally aired in May 2007. The musical score by George S. Clinton which featured Two-Hawks' music, earned one of 17 Emmy nominations, and was released as a soundtrack CD in 2007. Primarily, however, Two-Hawks is a solo artist. While his compositions often include many different instruments, he plays all of them himself.
John Two-Hawks presently lives in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas.