Chilean-born Vivianna Guzman (pennywhistle, classical flute, other flutes) played at my school recently with her band, Festival of Four.
She played an expensive 9k gold Böhm flute, a “Native American” (I put it in quotation marks because afterward, since I work at my school’s functions, I talked to her and saw the flute up close, it was an expensive foreign factory-made model) flute with drone, a jade flute from China, and of course a Walton’s Mellow D pennywhistle and some kind of goat horn flute.
She has trained with Galway and other world-reknowned flute players, and her technical skill was pretty much unsurpassed. However, I thought the emotions and the tone of her performance were dry as sand and very technical, except for the “Native American” tune which she played, when the guitarist used his guitar as a drum.
She made a border-line racist joke about Pocahontas right before playing the “Native American” flute and that ruined the whole night for me, but if you like to hear classical and traditional flute (and whistle!!) from a lady with lots of skill (but who isn’t very well known), listen to her.
Here is one of her CDs for those interested:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000003Y39/ref=pd_bxgy_img_b/103-3034740-9685445?_encoding=UTF8
(I’m also posting this on the pub forum, for posterity and because different people read both boards, I hope nobody minds.)