Artists' Biographies

Gera Clark and John Sarantos' flute journey crossed paths in Montana in the summer of 2005 at the Renaissance of the Native Amerian Flute workshop where John was one of the facilitators and Gera was a participant. John was impressed with the wide variety of sounds that Gera was able to emote out of the flute along with some very unusual fingerings that he had never seen used before. They started playing flutes together and discovered that they were creating music that they enjoyed playing.

Shortly after that summer, Gera Clark and John Sarantos formed NightDancers and have been performing concerts together ever since. Their first recording, "Montana Crossings"  was released in June 2007 and is currently being distributed to retail outlets across the nation.

Gera Clark has been playing the Contemporary Native American Flute for over seven years under the guidance of four native teachers; Ed Callshim (Ponca Sioux), John Rainer, Jr. (Taos/ Muskogee), Franc Menusan (Muskogee Creek/Seminloe) and R. Carlos Nakai (Navaho/Ute)... all who have been her teachers showing her to "walk in beauty " which can be a reveling and fun journey. Gera has also attended the Renaissance of the Native American Flute workshop in Montana for the past few years. Gera's performances have taken her all across the United States. She also helps facilitate several flute workshops where her specialty is teaching people how to learn to play the flute in a nonmusical, spiritual way for self relaxation and meditation.

John Sarantos has been facilitating weekend and week-long contemporary Native American flute workshops for over ten years. John was introduced to Native American flute music by his mother who was 84 years old at the time. He actively sought his flute journey over 11 years ago when he attended the week long Renaissance of the Native American Flute workshop in Montana where he started out as a beginner. Over the years, John has become a "master teacher" fondly known as Guru Z.

Sarantos was also the teaching assistant for the first three years of the Pacific Northwest Flute Gathering near Seattle and returned for the seventh year as one of the main instructors. For the past several years, John has also been one of the main instructors for the Armadillo Flute Society 's four day retreat held just outside of Dallas, Texas at Flower Mound. He was also a presenter at the Third International Native American Flute Association's Convention in Belmont, California.

One of John's highlights was teaching a five-hour-a-day workshop for five days to fifty Ojibwe tribal members in St. Ignace, Michigan, and is scheduled to return for the summer of 2007. John states, "It was wonderful to be able to share my knowledge of the flute, that I have been honored with, with so many others who can now share it with yet others."

John and his song book partner, Wayne McClesky, wrote and published the first song book for the contemporary Native American flute. John has written a total of six flute songbooks to date with several more in the works.