We are so very lucky to have a team of skilled artisans and top notch humans working with us to make this flute magic happen. We're so proud of our team!

Tom Stewart - Our Founder and Owner

Tom founded Stellar in 1995 when by a wonderful series of events he was introduced to the Native American Flute. The experience of making flutes, honing techniques, and creatively adding to the flute- making technology has been an engaging, arduous, and fulfilling task. Tom's believes in sharing his knowledge of flute making with the greater community and has taught countless others to make flutes. His willingness to share knowledge instead of hiding industry secrets has led Stellar Flutes to where it is now. Leading the flute community with learning resources and teacher training that allows this art to be passed on to generations to come. 

Lily Wilcox - Owner 

Lily is " Stellar, the next generation." She can take a flute blank and turn it into a beautifully tuned and finished flute. She runs every aspect of the business from wood working to office management and is the star of all of our flute playing video tutorials.

Andrew "Wally" Walnum

Wally is our shop manager bringing years of woodworking skill to our team. With a background in cabinetry and furniture restoration, he is a natural fit. He spends his days milling wood, turning flutes on the lathe, running our bore jig and soon he will be in charge of programing our CNC as we move into new and uncharted territory.

Neva Lewis

Neva came to us with no prior woodworking experience and has advanced to confidently make many parts of the flute. Her background as a illustrator and block print artist leads her to have a keen eye for detail. She careful crafts our blocks, glues our flutes together, marks and drills finger holes, and varnishes our flutes. Neva also runs our social media accounts, answering questions, posting, and always coming up with new and exciting ways to engage our customers.

Patty Breault

Patty is a skilled seamstress, she works from home making our lovely carrying cases and delivering them to us.

A Beautiful Documentary About Stellar Flutes

A Word about making Native American style flutes

My father and I are not Native American. Our ancestry is Scottish, Swedish, Wendish and more (in other words we are white). So let's  talk a moment about  what it means to make Native American style flutes.

Our flutes are not Native made.  Out of respect we don't decorate them with artwork that is traditionally Native such as feather work, bead work or Native American symbols.

So, what does it mean to make Native American style flutes? It means we are making a kind of instrument that was invented by Native American and First Nation people. This style of flute is different from the traditional silver flute and other flutes because it has a two chamber design; the slow air chamber(SAC) and the main bore. These two chambers are connected with a third piece called a block which allows air to pass from the chamber you blow into up and across the opening (fipple hole) to the second chamber.

The modern Native American style flutes are made in this same way, but we now have access to electric tuners, and most people who make and sell this style of flute tune it to feature pentatonic minor scale.

We were lucky enough to have PBS shoot this wonderful documentary about our business and family. I f you want to learn a little more about who we are, give this a watch!