Monday, January 19, 2009

Two-time Grammy Award winning musician performs for Williams + Paddon

group photo of class participants with Mary

Mary Youngblood performs

Terry and Jim take lessons from Mary

It all started with the silent auction and bidding of a beautifully handcrafted wooden flute created by Ed Easter, who generously donated the flute along with an autographed copy of Mary Youngblood’s latest CD Sacred Place, to the Sierra Adoption Boutique fundraiser. Of course, at the Silent Auction there was only one winning bidder for the flute, so when Ed discovered others were interested in his finely crafted instrument he made several more and sold additional flutes to Jim Williams and Terry Green and donated the additional proceeds to Sierra Adoption. I later learned that Stephen Kleinhans and Robert Wallis were also proud owners of an Ed Easter handmade flute.

Mary Youngblood who is a two-time Grammy Award winning Native American flutist and an accomplished and well respected musician is also a friend of Ed’s, so to inspire us to learn to play the artfully crafted flutes we purchased, he arranged to have Mary perform a mini concert for everyone’s enjoyment, which followed with a two hour flute lesson (taught by Mary) for anyone who was interested. Jim, Terry, and I participated in the class along with another friend of Ed’s. We really enjoyed Mary’s warmth and humor and appreciated her expertise in the art of flute playing. She truly makes it look easy.

According to her bio, Mary is classically trained on several instruments, and has been playing the flute for over 40 years. She is one of the premiere Native American flute players/musicians in the country. Winner of numerous awards, she received the 2002 GRAMMY for Beneath the Raven Moon. She twice received Flutist of the Year along with Best Female Artist from the Native American Music Awards for her other releases. You can also hear Youngblood on her 2004 Grammy Nominated- Feed the Fire, Heart of the World and The Offering. The album "Dance with the wind” was a 2006 Grammy Award Winner- Best Native American Music Album. In 2008, Mary was nominated for an EMMY Award for 'Composer,' for her work in the documentary The Spirit of Sacajawea. The film won two Emmy Awards, for Production and Editing!

Rose

To learn more about Mary Youngblood go to Website:
www.maryoungblood.com

0 comments:

Powered by Blogger.