Not since Grammy-winner Mary Youngblood rose to prominence some years ago has another female player of the Native
American flute attracted so much attention and support from within the Native American and music communitites. Maryland-based
flutist Jan Seiden's career has skyrocketed since her appearance at the 2002 Musical Echoes Native American Cultural Gathering.
Her unique sound, original music and deep spiritual connection carry listeners to as-yet undiscovered places within thier own hearts.
Judged by an internationally recognized jury of recording artists, Seiden was awarded First Place in the Traditional Solo Category of
the 2002 Musical Echoes Flute Competition. She has performed on stage with such leading artists as Mary Youngblood and Michael
Graham Allen of Coyote Oldman. She has been a featured performer in prime concerts with NAMA-Award Winners Tito Las Rosa and
with Jeff Ball at Milwaukee's 2002 Indian Summer Festival (one of the largest gatherings of Native American tribes, attended by 65, 000
people), as well as a featured soloist at the 29th Annual Baltimore American Indian Center Pow Wow; Baltimore's American Indian
Center Mini-Pow Wow in 2003, and at American Indian Heritage Day in St. Leonard, MD. She has played for the Commission on
Indian Affairs and the Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum, and was filmed by Maryland Public Television for a program that aired
in Spring 2004.
Seiden has touched many people's lives with her healing flute music. She works with children in Maryland public and private schools
as well as with inner city at-risk youth in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the Washington Parks and People Organization;
workshop and concert programs in 2003 with inner city youth were funded specifically for Seiden by a grant from the National
Endowment fo the Arts and the D.C. Arts Initiative. She is currently developing a program of therapeutic music for hospital patients at
the Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine. She has also conducted seminars and performed at
the University of Maryland, School of Medicine Center for Vaccine Development, as well as at the Oregon Ridge Nature Center, She
is a friend and member of the Baltimore American Indian Center.
Woodland Winds
This extraordinary debut album really started ten years ago when Jan Seiden took up the Native American flute after having studied
concert flute for nine years as a child. She also studied the sacred process of flute making in the Cherokee tradition under the guidance
of master instrument maker, Billy Crowbeak, who has been crafting exceptional instruments for over two decades. On Woodland
Winds, she plays handmade traditional instruments - both Woodland - and Plains-style flutes - made by Native Americans
including medicine man and fifth generation flute maker Hawk LittleJohn, Cherokee flute maker Danny Bigay, and Billy Crowbeak,
as well as three instruments she crafted herself under the tutelage of Crowbeak.
The 15 original solos heard here demonstrate not only phenomenal breath-work and superb lip-tongue technique, but also demonstrate
her poetic soul and passionate heart. In fact, Cherokee educator and storyteller Joseph Stands With Many was so impressed by
Seiden's embrace of her chosen instrument that he says "Her music touched me in such a way that I asked her if I could honor her and
give her a Cherokee name. I named her Wonder Heart, for that is what came to me through her music."