Flutist Unfazed By Butterfly Kiss Has Michigan Ties: Watch

If you were anywhere near a computer or television over the couple of weeks, you probably smiled at a clip of a viral video of a flutist who didn’t skip a note as a butterfly floated in and danced on her forehead during an international competition.

As it turns out, the recipient of the nearly minute-long butterfly kiss is the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra’s principal flutist, Yukie Ota. The 29-year-old Japan-born and Chicago based flutist was performing at the prestigious Carl Nielsen International Flute Competition in Odense, Denmark, where she eventually claimed second place.

If you didn’t know better, you might think the flittering visitor was a perfectly scripted accompaniment to her dreamy performance of Sancan’s “’Sonatine for Flute and Piano” at the competition. Ota betrayed its intrusion only briefly, rolling her eyes upward as it lighted on her eyebrow about 30 seconds into her performance and gently folded and unfolded its wings.

It also turns out that butterflies are a lot like sharks when it comes to honing in on something tasty – though, to be fair, the consequences for a musician licked by a butterfly because she was perspiring under pressure are less than dire for someone left bleeding in the water.

Dr. Bob Robbins, curator of lepidoptera at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, told NPR that when butterflies come inside and land on someone – a “very weird” occurrence, he said – they’re usually looking for something salty to drink.

“If you look closely at the video,” Robbins said, “you can see the butterfly’s proboscis – its ‘tongue’ – out as it crawls across her forehead. It’s looking for her perspiration. And she’s under lights at a highfalutin competition. I’d be sweating a bit under that pressure.”

Ota told MLive/The Kalamazoo Gazette she viewed the fluttering visitor – commonly known as a Peacock butterfly (Aglais io) – as a messenger of good luck gently reminding her to give her best in the performance.

“He just came and landed on my head. I didn’t see it coming. All of a sudden it landed, ‘What is happening?’” Ota said in a phone interview with the newspaper from her home in Chicago. “It was kind of surprising, at the same time, I had to concentrate on my performance. If I stop, I will fail.”

She said judges in the competition, which draws some of the world’s most accomplished young flutists ages 13-29, were impressed by her unflinching competition.

“It was surprising that it landed on my forehead, but maybe it gave me more concentration,” she said. “Maybe after that, it was easy for people to remember who I am.”

There’s no guarantee butterflies will show up, but Ota performs with the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra at 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 5, at the Dalton Center Recital Hall.

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Screenshot: YouTube video that to date has been viewed by more than 2.1 million people.