Under The Sun

by Trina Sargalski

Erik Sampson (Erik the Flute Maker) hugs Dario, a young Nicaraguan man in the Somoto dump where the youth lived for a year. (courtesy of Flutemaker Ministries)

“Memory” by Erik the Flutemaker, with Alex Fox and Michael Arias

Erik Sampson (aka Erik the Flute Maker) is a man devoted to the reed instrument.  He plays all sorts of flutes, and he also makes them, fashioning some from the stands of bamboo growing on his property.  Sampson first learned to play the guitar.  He says he discovered the minor scale on the guitar as a teen when a girl he fancied liked his best friend better.  When he was 18, he learned how to play the bamboo flute in Mexico.  He also plays harmonica and congas.

His website, Erik the Flutemaker, is a one-stop shop for all kinds of flutes: you can find handmade Irish pennywhistles, panpipes, and even (my favorite) the Kiowa love flute.

Sampson now channels his love of the flute into a cause: the children of Cascabel.   For years, Sampson traveled to Latin America as what he calls “an independent missionary– a story teller, ventriloquist, actor and historian.”    In 2006, when he was giving a puppet show in Nicaragua, he learned that some of the children in his audience had been rescued from a garbage dump and were in the care of a pastor who had no financial resources.  The children had been sleeping on bags of rice and beans.  Since then, Sampson puts much of his energy and resources towards Flutemaker Ministries, which raises money for the children of Cascabel.

His song, “Memory” played in the Under the Sun story, “The Tale of Lot 180.”  He was accompanied by Alex Fox on guitar and Michael Arias on trumpet.  To learn more about other South Florida musicians we’ve featured on Under the Sun, click here.