The San Francisco Flute Festival was held for the first time on 10/10/2010, which lived up to its promise as an auspicious date.  The festival provided the first opportunity for the Bay Area to hear flutists from around the world in a back-to-back fashion, and a rare opportunity for flute players to also learn from some of those master musicians.
    
The Festival was an all day event, beginning with master classes taught by French-American Isabelle Chapuis, Turkish flutist Bulent Evcil, Slovenian flutist Matej Zupan , and Chilean / American flutist Viviana Guzman.  The afternoon featured performances by flute choirs, including the San Jose Youth Symphony Avant Flute Choir, Bel Canto Flutes, the Stanford Flute Ensemble, and the Magicflutes Flute Choir.  The winner of a judged competition, high school prodigy Annie Wu, performed as soloist with Magicflutes Choir.  Ms. Wu, fourteen, performed with a technical mastery and feeling far beyond her years-but accepted the praise shown her by the crowd with a shy smile that was pure childlike joy. The winner of the adult competition, Kris Palmer, gave the crowd a treat with Mozart's Andante in C, featuring her own cadenzas. 
    
A highlight of the flute choir portion of the event for many of the participants and the audience, was the combined choirs' performance of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring."  Seeing and hearing roughly eighty flutists from pre-teens to college students to seasoned players, was a moment of synergy, harmony and community that made many emotional, some of them quite literally to tears.
    
The concert which followed showcased the talents of the master class teachers, plus Carol Alban, jazz flutist Nika Rejto, and a joint performance by San Francisco Symphony principal flutist Timothy Day and his wife, SF Symphony Assistant Principal flutist Robin McKee.  Carol Alban opened with something out of the ordinary, with her own composition "Elegy" accompanied by Paradiso on didjeridoo and Rasamayi Turtucci on crystal and singing bowls.  The humming of the didjeridoo and subtle (but somewhat hard to hear) tones of the crystal and bowls, provided a sort of invocation for the event.
    
Nika Rejto, inspired by the day to change her program at the last minute, spiced things up with improvisation and the cool guitar counterpoint from her accompanist, the crowd snapping its fingers and feeling like they were in a jazz nightclub even though the sun had not yet gone down over the nearby ocean.   Isabelle Chapuis then brought her delicate touch to a classical piece, the Flute Sonata No. 1 in A Major, Opus 13 by Gabriel Faure.
    
Viviana Guzman, the festival founder and director, closed out the first half of the program with an unaccompanied, rousing rendition of "Milonga de Mis Amores," (by Pedro Laurenz) and then a haunting take on the beautifully melodic "Oblivion and Libertango" by tango composer Astor Piazolla, and closed with "Czardas," which got the crowd tapping to what she noted is "the most famous Hungarian song written by an Italian [V. Monti]." Her rich, vibrant playing showed in every ethereal lilt in "Oblivion" and flashed controlled fire on the faster pieces. The Latin / Hungarian pieces, played as she noted, "by a Chilean in California wearing a geisha dress," added to the international feeling of the festival.
    
Opening the second half, Matej Zupan played music from his home country of Slovenia with such clear and flawless mastery that it brought him a standing ovation. Zupan's modest manner was in contrast to his brilliant and engaging performance. Bulent Evcil then peformed songs from his native Turkey, and also the fast-paced Carnival of Venice and Flight of the Bumble Bee, which almost brought out a trancelike fascination with his ability to make the flute dance with trills and sustained verve. His training under James Galway shows in his bell-like clarity, but his passion and energetic stage presence are all his own.  He too earned a standing ovation. 
    
Then Zupan joined Evcil, and the two combined to play a dueling, humorous piece, "Coffee nerves" by Gary Shocker, which again brought the crowd to its feet.  SF Symphony virtuosos Day and McKee, husband and wife, showed how their harmony extends also into their playing, seamlessly finishing each other's musical thoughts, bringing the event to a satisfying conclusion.
    
The extremely high quality of the players and the variety in genres of music and performances showed why there is a need for a festival such as this-and why it deserves a wider audience. Ms. Guzman has plans to make the Festival a San Francisco institution, joining similar festivals which take place regularly in places such as Milan, Italy, Germany and Slovenia.   The only problem she might face is the happy one of trying to top the inaugural festival.