--- title: Musician Unfazed By Butterfly Landing on Face Mid-Performance description: Flutist somehow manages not to freak out when the bug lands on her forehead during a performance canonical: https://time.com/3394826/flautist-butterfly-musician/ author: Maya Rhodan article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-09-18T17:01:25.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:13:17.210Z og:title: Musician Unfazed By Butterfly Landing on Face Mid-Performance og:description: Flutist somehow manages not to freak out when the bug lands on her forehead during a performance og:url: https://time.com/3394826/flautist-butterfly-musician/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fe9272b80c27afa/6986a42206f2c15a77330cdc/flute-butterfly.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: flute-butterfly og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Musician Unfazed By Butterfly Landing on Face Mid-Performance twitter:description: Flutist somehow manages not to freak out when the bug lands on her forehead during a performance twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fe9272b80c27afa/6986a42206f2c15a77330cdc/flute-butterfly.png?branch=production&width=1920&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Musician Unfazed By Butterfly Landing on Face Mid-Performance by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Sep 18, 2014 5:01 PM UTC  by [Maya Rhodan](https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/) ## Maya Rhodan Sep 18, 2014 5:01 PM UTC Chicago-based flutist Yukie Ota handled a challenging distraction during her performance like a true champion on Monday at the Carl Nielsen Flute Competiton in Odense, Denmark. A butterfly [landed on her face](http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2014/09/16/348986742/watch-a-sweet-little-butterfly-nearly-crush-a-womans-hopes-and-dreams?utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fcampaign=nprmusic&utm%5Fterm=music&utm%5Fcontent=20140916) and she barely looked up. While most people would react to any critter (beautiful wings or no) landing smack atop their forehead by quickly melting down, Yukie Ota barely blinked, and finished out the piece with poise and grace, with an expression that said, “Butterfly? What butterfly?” To top it all off, she evidently advanced to the next round. In their report on the story, [NPR](http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2014/09/16/348986742/watch-a-sweet-little-butterfly-nearly-crush-a-womans-hopes-and-dreams?utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fcampaign=nprmusic&utm%5Fterm=music&utm%5Fcontent=20140916) enlisted the help of a Smithsonian Museum of Natural History curator to figure out what on earth drew the butterfly to the performer’s face at that moment. The expert’s answer: the bug likely was attracted to the saltiness of her sweat under the bright lights of the stage. Nope. No pressure at all. \[[_NPR_](http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2014/09/16/348986742/watch-a-sweet-little-butterfly-nearly-crush-a-womans-hopes-and-dreams?utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fcampaign=nprmusic&utm%5Fterm=music&utm%5Fcontent=20140916)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3394826/flautist-butterfly-musician/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3394826/flautist-butterfly-musician/"},"headline":"Musician Unfazed By Butterfly Landing on Face Mid-Performance","datePublished":"2014-09-18T17:01:25.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:13:17.210Z","description":"Flutist somehow manages not to freak out when the bug lands on her forehead during a performance","url":"https://time.com/3394826/flautist-butterfly-musician/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","Videos"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fe9272b80c27afa/6986a42206f2c15a77330cdc/flute-butterfly.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Maya Rhodan","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/maya-rhodan/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt2fe9272b80c27afa/6986a42206f2c15a77330cdc/flute-butterfly.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"flute-butterfly","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3394826/flautist-butterfly-musician/","name":"Musician Unfazed By Butterfly Landing on Face Mid-Performance"}}]}] ```