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| Photo by Andrea Day |
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| Snail in Hotensia |
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| Photo by Andrea Day |
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| Photo by Henry Kaiser |
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| Denmark seen from the sky |
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This is a picture taken by Henrik Bundgaard of the performance of Takemitsu Toru's November Steps.
Conductor: Lan Shui
Shakuhachi: Kiku Day
Biwa: Ueda Junko
Odense Symphony Orchestra
25 January 2007
Yokoyama Katsuya
Many sincere condolences to family and close friends of Yokoyama Katsuya sensei who passed away 21 April 2010. Yokoyama was one of the most important shakuhachi players of the 20th century. His influence on shakuhachi players will continue. He enriched the shakuhachi world!
Read the Obituary by Jim Franklin, Véronique Piron and Horacio Curti on the ESS website
Biography
I am a jinashi shakuhachi (hotchiku) player from Copenhagen, Denmark with American, Japanese, Irish and Russian roots.
I began my piano studies at the age of 3, playing classical music. At the age of 16 I turned to the flute. One particularly strong component in my personality has always been a longing to explore the world and exploring how the 'world' is constructed by us humans. After finishing school I thus decided to take a break from flute practice for the entrance exam at the Royal Danish Conservatory and left instead for Asia via the Trans-Siberian railway. After some time in Russia, Mongolia, China, East Turkestan, and Tibet, I ended up in Tokyo, where I decided to stay in order to study the jinashi shakuhachi and the honkyoku repertoire with Okuda Atsuya. At the same time I studied the Japanese language and am now fluent in its use. In the beginning of my stay in Japan, I studied a myriad of things such as sumi-e (brush painting), ikebana, challigraphy, how to wear a kimono, cha-dô (tea ceremony) and travel all over the country to watch and participate in festivals, i finally narrowed it down to shakuhachi.
I was extremely fortunate and privileged to be accepted as a student by Okuda. I wanted to learn honkyoku, and that is the only thing he teaches. Had it been necessary for me to first go through sankyoku and the other musical genres played on the shakuhachi in order to come to honkyoku, I would probably have gone back to playing the flute. Also I was lucky I encountered a teacher in jinashi shakuhachi. For me playing shakuhachi is a lot about timbre. The timbre of this instrument really fascinates me. My studies with Okuda lasted for ten years, between 1989 and 1999, during which time I based myself in Japan but spent half of the year travelling to other Asian countries, Oceania, and Central America.
©Atsuo Hashimoto
In 1997 I decided to move back to Europe. The first three years I spent
in Geneva, Switzerland - going to Japan half the time. The next three I spent in London, UK where I took my BA in
ethnomusicology at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University
of London), studying with such scholars as David Hughes, Keith Howard,
Owen Wright, Rachel Harris et al. During my studies there I became more and more interested
in contemporary music and began to study improvisation with Clive Bell,
composition with Daniel Chua at King’s College, London, while also
doing research on the underground music scene in Tokyo and
Osaka.
I completed my Masters in Fine Art in Performance and Literature
at Mills College, Oakland, California, USA in May 2005. My main focus was improvisation
and the performance of contemporary music on ji-nashi shakuhachi. I studied improvisation, performance and composition with Fred Frith,
Joëlle Léandre, Anne LeBaron and Alvin Curran, and my instrumental teacher was the brilliant sax player Jon Raskin from the ROVA Saxophone Quartet. It was a pleasure to be a part of the music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area. I played with many brilliant musicians playing electronics, 'normal' western instruments, to kora, percussionists using everything they felt had a good sound to a huge long instrument with strings spanned out several meters.
In September 2009 I finished my Ph.D. at SOAS in London. The main focus was again the performance
of contemporary music on jinashi shakuhachi. I collaborated with five composers in order to create a repertoire that is consciously created for the the jinashi shakuhachi. I worked with Roxanna Panufnik, Frank Denyer, Yumi Hara Cawkwell, Mogens Christensen and Takahashi Yuji. They were all brilliant composers, who have made very different pieces of for jinashi shakuhachi. I am planning to record a CD with these 5 pieces in early 2010.
I hope to succeed in taking jinashi
shakuhachi playing to a new level.
I am now lecturing the Japan ssegments of Music courses at SOAS, University of London.
Since 2005 I have been working on creating a space for the shakuhachi in Europe. I initiated the organisation of the first Pan-European Shakuhachi Summer School with Koto and Shamisen, which was co-organised with Michael Coxall and SOAS Music Department, and all the teachers have helped greatly with useful input. See the website:
www.shakuhachisummer-soas.com/
Including in this vision I had about creation of a space for shakuhachi players in Europe to communicate and collaborate, the European Shakuhachi Society was founded. I am one of the founding members of the committee, and now since September 2009 I am the chair person. I am hopping we will be able to create a society that embraces all styles of shakuhachi and covering all corners of Europe where there is an interest in this beautiful instrument. ESS was registered as a charity organisation in UK March 2009. The main aim is education and spreading the knowledge of shakuhachi. The main event ESS organises is the Pan-European Shakuhachi Summer Schools, which will hopefully travel each summer to different locations in Europe providing the possibilities for European shakuhachi players to experience the different directions in shakuhachi prensent in Europe. In 2009 the ESS Summer School will take place in Prague, Czech Republic.
It certainly is exciting times in Europe for shakuhachi lovers!
See our 'under construction' website: www.shakuhachisociety.eu
where you will also be able to read about the 2nd Pan-European Shakuhachi Summer School and other shakuhachi events in Europe.
Photo: Lynne Williams
Personality disorder? Perhaps! Even a hose in Kew Gardens, South London had to tested for potential sounds! With the grin that followed, it can't have been that successful!
