October 1-5, 2025
Do you love acoustic blues guitar? So do we. For 12 years we've dedicated 5 days to bringing the best acoustic players and teachers here to Menucha for an extended weekend filled with all the blues and fingerstyle guitar goodness.
Arriving Wednesday afternoon you'll be welcomed to our slice of Pacific Northwest heaven. Thursday, Friday and Saturday will be filled with classes, getting to know fellow players, and taking your playing to the next level in classes and jams. Friday night you can show your skills during the student concert just for Blues participants. On Saturday night you'll be treated to a public concert featuring the instructors. Sunday after breakfast and some last musical moments, we'll part ways to return home filled with good music, inspiration, and an even greater love for playing your guitar.
Come and immerse yourself in five days of instruction with four of the best acoustic blues musicians.
Artistic Director, Mary Flower, is putting together an amazing faculty for 2025. Stay tuned, we'll be announcing the faculty soon!
Some photos from past Blues in the Gorge
Mary Flower
Mary Flower’s immense finger picking guitar and lap-slide prowess is soulful and meter-perfect, a deft blend of the inventive, the dexterous and the mesmerizing. Her supple honey-and-whiskey voice provides the perfect melodic accompaniment to each song’s story. An internationally known and award-winning picker, singer/songwriter and teacher, the Midwest native relocated from Denver to the vibrant Portland, Oregon music scene in 2004. She continues to please crowds and critics at folk festivals, teaching seminars and concert stages domestically and abroad, that include Merlefest, Kerrville, King Biscuit, Prairie Home Companion and the Vancouver Folk Festival, among many.
A finalist in 2000 and 2002 at the National Finger Picking Guitar Championship, a nominee in 2008, 2012 and 2016 for a Blues Foundation Blues Music Award, and many times a Cascade Blues Assn. Muddy Award winner, Flower embodies a luscious and lusty mix of rootsy, acoustic-blues guitar and vocal styles that span a number of idioms – from Piedmont to the Mississippi Delta, with stops in ragtime, swing, folk and hot jazz. Flower’s 11 recordings, including her four for Memphis’ famed Yellow Dog Records — Bywater Dance, Instrumental Breakdown, Bridges and Misery Loves Company — show a deep command of and love for folk and blues string music. For Flower, it’s never about re-creation. Her dedication to the art form is a vital contribution to America’s music.