Erik Sampson

Erik makes bamboo flutes for 50 years, harvesting different kinds of bamboo in the USA, Mexico, Guatemala, Argentina, Brazil, Hawaii, Costa Rica and Fiji, where he got to play for their President. Erik decided to settle in Florida due to the great flute making bamboo called Bambusa Multiplex that grew in southern China and settled into Japan for centuries. It arrived by steam ship from Yokohama to San Francisco and came by train to Florida in the mid 1880's, settling into the sub-tropical gardens of pioneer horticulturalists and then into the earliest plant nurseries which spread the bamboo around Florida. Finding old clumps of bamboo to make flutes has been Erik’s joy and treasure, but it all began with a wooden flute made in India...