The Spanish singer brought six songs and one plastic folding chair to her first Tiny Desk Concert. It’s as strange and precise as it sounds.
Amaia walked into the NPR offices and played a flute made from a plastic folding chair. This is a real sentence. It happened between “C’est La Vie” and “Nanai,” two of the six songs she performed for her first Tiny Desk Concert.
The chair flute isn’t a gimmick. Amaia played a dazzling solo on it, then kept it going through the next track. She’s a multi-instrumentalist who knows how to make strange ideas sound natural. For most of the set, she stayed at the piano, singing with the kind of clarity that makes you forget she’s also holding a piece of furniture.
The set includes “Zorongo,” “Auxiliar,” “Giratutto,” and “Yamaguchi.” Each song lands differently, but they all carry the same emotional weight. Amaia released her third album, *Si Abro los Ojos No Es Real*, in 2025. She has a few international dates coming up.
Watch the full performance below. It’s worth it for the chair flute alone, but the piano work is what stays with you.
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The collective voice behind ROMBO Magazine’s news, reviews, features, and cultural coverage.
