Hi Everybody!

First off, thanks to all of you for reading the last blog and now for checking this one out too. I have been off line for a bit but hopefully am back full time now. My special thanks to web master Obi Wan Gamache for his tireless efforts of the past couple of months. In that time he has been doing battle with the Dark Side in the Cyber Wars on my behalf slaying sucky servers, battling busted blades and eradicating errant e mail errors. Well done Obi Wan, the Force is strong in you!

We now have up and running a new web site for my annual flute symposium called “Wind on the Bay“. I had at first thought that I would roll the two sites I have into one mega site but on second thought we decided to go with the old format of two separate sites. If you have a moment swing by www.windonthebay.com and check it out.

This is going to be the 7th year of WOTB and while we will have the same instructional staff as last year, I have made some major changes in the format of the festival. I make it a point to listen to the comments of our attendees and take their suggestions quite seriously. I hope the new format is to everyone’s liking!

I am going to be on the road quite a bit more this year and I am very excited about that. I have two major events that I will be participating in this year for the first time that I would like to mention in particular.

The first is the INAFA Convention held in Eau Claire, Wisconsin July 9 - 13 at the University of Wisconsin Haas Fine Arts Center. You can check out their web site at http://www.inafa.org/2008convention.htm .

This event features many if not all of the premier performers of Native American flute music including the great R.Carlos Nakai among many others. Why me you may ask? Well it turns out that the festival wants to broaden its scope to include other forms of traditional flute music and I am honored to be the first non-Native American flutist to be invited!

I have also been invited to be the flute instructor at the prestigious Queen Maeve International Summer School of Irish Music, Song, and Set Dancing. This event will be held in Sligo town, County Sligo Ireland from August 4 - 9. This festival was founded by and is under the Direction of the great Carmel Gunning. Herself a champion tin whistle, flute, and vocal musician as well as one of the most respected educators of traditional Irish music in the world. This is quite an honor for yours truly and I am really looking forward to the event. You can read more about it by visiting the events section of my main web site www.skiphealy.com.

That’s it for the moment. Thanks for reading the blog and as always,

“All the Best!”

Skip Healy