New MIM exhibit celebrates world’s oldest wind instrument

The Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix is debuting “The Magical Flute,” a new exhibition featuring more than 100 rare and historic flutes from around the world, including an 8,000-year-old Chinese bone flute, Napoleon’s glass flute and Maya instruments adorned with intricate iconography.

Alongside these artifacts, the exhibit highlights costumes, ceremonial objects and modern instruments used by renowned musicians, showcasing the deep cultural and artistic significance of the world’s oldest wind instrument.

Curators Matt Zeller and Eddie Hsu joined “Arizona Horizon” to explore the global history and creative legacy of the flute.

“It’s the world’s oldest wind instrument,” Zeller said. “Ancient peoples understood the principle of how to make a flute and have been making bone flutes for thousands upon thousands of years.”

Hsu added that nearly every civilization has developed some variation of the instrument: “Every culture has got some sort of flute or whistle… celebrating that as the world’s oldest instrument is a big part of this exhibition.”

One of the centerpieces is the 8,000-year-old Chinese xiao, crafted from the wing bones of a vulture.

“It’s such a rare archaeological instrument,” Hsu explained. “Experts created replicas and found they can produce a surprisingly consistent series of tones.”

The exhibit also expands beyond instruments to include contextual artifacts such as ceremonial costumes. Zeller described one striking display: a towering hunter’s mask and whistle from the Chokwe people of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“The headdress is three and a half feet tall,” he said. “The whistle is made in its image, invoking the ancestor and protecting hunters.”

Other featured instruments include a lavish early-14th-century flute made for the Japanese emperor Go-Daigo.

“It’s richly decorated with multiple layers of lacquer and elaborate motifs of dragons and clouds,” Hsu said. “A remarkable aesthetic of beauty.”

The show also explores innovation, including a 1999 carbon-fiber flute outfitted with magnets and rubber gaskets.

“It’s fun to see how you can modernize the flute,” Zeller said. A visiting flutist noted it even sounded “more like an older wooden flute rather than a modern silver or gold instrument.”

A highlight for many visitors will be Sir James Galway’s flute—an icon of contemporary performance. “He is the man with the golden flute,” Zeller said. “The first name people think of.”

The exhibition also includes unexpected treasures, such as Napoleon’s crystal flute, faceted with 540 individually ground surfaces.

“It is a sight to behold,” Zeller noted.

“The Magical Flute” opens Friday at MIM. More information is available at MIM.org.