| was held on August 14,15 & 16 at Salt Water State Park in Des Moines, Washington. This was the first year at this location and realtors are correct when they say the three most important things are location, location and location. This is a beautiful park right on Puget Sound and it is very popular on the weekends, especially when the weather is sunny and in the 80's with a light breeze. The area where Flute Quest was located was a beautiful, tree shaded area with Puget Sound as the backdrop. There also were two Tee Pees set up on the beach, one for drum circles and the other for kflute circles. While walking around the grounds on Sunday, I spoke with a number of vendors and almost every one said it was the best sales they had ever had at Flute Quest. Between the new location and the weather they not only had those of us who came specifically for the festival, but also those who stopped by because they came to spend time at the beach and the park. The concerts were held a few miles away from the park at Highline Community College and the music hall was very nice and intimate The concert for Mary Youngblood and Gary Stroutsos was sold out!
Fridays concert started with Ancient Sounds, whom I believe have opened the nightly concert series all four years of Flute Quest. They are a group that is very diverse and cover the "World Sounds" of music. Gary Leathum is the Flutist and is well known here in the Northwest. Very solid set with musicians who work well together.
The headliner for the evening was Sarayu made up by Bill Hoshal and Vince Chafin and they were joined by world percussionist and northwest son Larry Mahlis. I have always enjoyed these guys but this year there were a few problems with the instruments and Vince ended up playing mostly guitar. They opened with a NAF solo by Bill Hoshal which was fantastic, but most of the rest of the show was more New Age, free form, which was good, but I was really looking forward to much more of the NAF.
Saturday night was the big one starting out with Mary Youngblood who could not be more genuine with her audience. She talked a lot with us and engaged us not only with her amazing flute playing, but handed out a bunch of rattles, etc. for us to play along with her. She grew up here in the Puget Sound area and her stories just added to the wonderful show she put on. We even got to meet her fiance who came up and drummed a bit as well.
The second set was Gary Stroutsos, one of my all time favorite flutist and one of the finest musicians I have every heard. Gary just makes magic with whatever style of flute he is playing and makes it all look and sound effortless. Accompanying Gary was Bill Hoshal on the NAF, Clarinet, sax, many other flutes and percussion and Vince Chafin who worked every noisemaker available to man and I believe he was in such a Zen state of mind, he actually floated above the cushion he was sitting on a couple of times. Between sets, Vince smudged the stage, but it got so smoky that we were all sort of waiting for the fire alarm to go off. More then a little coughing ensued during the first half hour of their set. Like Sarayu's set on Friday night, this also got very New Age in sound but with Gary playing flute, it was all good.
This Flute Quest moved the event from the small mom and pop feel of the past to a much more professional set up that should easily grow larger in the years to come. A great job by all who put this event together.
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