SHAKUHACHI TEACHERS IN EUROPE
TEACHERS BY NAME
TEACHERS A – F
Clive Bell
Schools/styles taught: Just how to play the shakuhachi.
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miyata
Languages: English
Teaching Locations: London
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.clivebell.co.uk
Email: clive.bell@tesco.net
Biography: Clive Bell is a musician, composer and writer with a specialist interest in the shakuhachi, khene and other Far Eastern wind instruments. He has travelled extensively in Japan (where he studied the shakuhachi ¬ or Japanese flute¬ for two years with the master Kohachiro Miyata), Thailand, Laos and Bali, researching music and meeting local practitioners.
Clive is the shakuhachi player on Karl Jenkins’s album Requiem on EMI Classics, and the final two Harry Potter movies. His shakuhachi playing was featured in a live solo session on Radio 3’s Late Junction. A musician who regularly joins David Ross, Sylvia Hallett, Mike Adcock and Peter Cusack in various improvisation duos and trios, Clive Bell has a substantial recording history as both a solo artist (his solo album, Shakuhachi: The Japanese Flute was reissued in 2005 by ARC Records) and as a composer for film, TV and theatrical productions (Complicite, IOU, Whalley Range Allstars). Kazuko Hohki, Jah Wobble, David Sylvian, Steve Beresford, David Toop, Jochen Irmler of Faust, Paul Schütze and Bill Laswell number among Clive Bell’s collaborators.
Based in London, he writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire.
Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
Schools/styles taught: Kinko (honkyoku, sankyoku),
Myôan, contemporary, improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: YAMAGUCHI Goro, OKAMOTO Chikugai, FUJII Kunie
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Tokyo, world wide
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.yohmei.com
Email: yohmei@gol.com
Biography: Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began the shakuhachi and studies of Japanese music in 1972 with Living National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi. He also studied Fuke shakuhachi under Okamoto Chikugai, jiuta ensemble playing with Fujii Kunie and ryûteki flute under Shiba Sukeyasu. In 1982 he received an MFA in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and is one of only two non-Japanese to be accredited as a shihan master by Yamaguchi. Performing in Japan and around the world, Blasdel maintains a balance between traditional shakuhachi music, modern compositions and cross-genre work with musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists.
Discography includes Navarasa (2009), Breath Play (2007), Visionary Tones (2005) and several other CDs of traditional and contemporary music. He has composed and performed music for NHK documentaries and various films. He co-organized the World Shakuhachi Festival ’98 held in Boulder, Colorado and the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival in 2008. He is the senior advisor to the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festival. His semi-autobiographical book, The Single Tone—A Personal Journey through Shakuhachi Music (Printed Matter Press, 2005) and The Shakuhachi, A Manual for Learning (1988) are two of the most important English language resource books on the shakuhachi.
He presently teaches Japanese music at Temple University in Tokyo and is coordinator/mentor for the Columbia University Hôgaku Program. He holds a third-degree black belt in Aikido.
Thilo Burdach
Schools/styles taught: Kyotaku Meioan style
Teachers’ teacher: Koku Nishimura
Languages: German, English, Spanish, Italian
Teaching Locations: Berlin
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.tilopa.de
Email: tiloburdach@web.de
Biography: Born 1949, teaching T’ai Chi/Chi Gong since 1982, has studied Kyotaku with Koku Sensei since 1986,
making and teaching Kyotaku since the 1990’s, published several CDs under the name ’tilopa’,
now living with his wife in Berlin.
Hélène Seiyu Codjo
Schools/styles taught: Fukuda’s school Hijiri-kai (or “Sainte-école”): honkyoku and modern pieces
Teacher’s teacher: Fukuda Teruhisa and Daniel Seisoku Lifermann
Languages: French, English & Dutch.
Teaching Locations: The Netherlands (Nijmegen, Eindhoven & Rotterdam).
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: http://www.fluitshakuhachi.nl
Email: helene@fluitshakuhachi.nl
Biography: Hélène Seiyu Codjo started to learn shakuhachi with Daniel Seisoku Lifermann in Paris in the French association La Voie du Bambou. She also followed masterclasses with Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Jim Franklin, Shimura Zempo, Yodo Kurahashi II and Koichi Yoshida.
Since 2006, she regularly attends the masterclasses of Fukuda Teruhisa, founder of the ensemble and school Hijiri-Kai. In January 2013, she received the jun shihan license with the name Seiyu (Wisdom of kindness) from him. In November 2015, Fukuda Teruhisa awarded her with the shihan license (master).
She lives in the Netherlands, where she gives lessons, workshops and concerts.
Furthermore, she writes shows where she plays other world flutes (quena, dizi, African flutes,…) in addition to the shakuhachi and the western flutes. She also works with storytellers and has recorded a dozen CDs for children with her different flutes.
Michael Soumei Coxall
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryu honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Goro
Languages: English, Japanese.
Teaching locations: Oxford, England.
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: Soumei Shakuhachi
Email: chikusoumei@gmail.com
Biography: Michael Soumei Coxall studied shakuhachi under the legendary Yamaguchi Goro (1933–99) in Japan from 1979 to 1984 and continued his studies with him on frequent visits to Japan until 1999. Yamaguchi Goro was the head of the Chikumeisha branch of Kinko-ryu shakuhachi, one of the oldest existing shakuhachi lineages, and was the youngest ever performer to be designated as a ‘Living Cultural Treasure’ and played the most wonderful music. Since then, Michael has continued to study sankyoku (music to accompany koto and shamisen repertoires) and honkyoku (traditional solo pieces) under Mizuno Kohmei, one of Goro-sensei’s foremost students and presently head of Chikumeisha, and he received his Shihan (Master’s Licence) in 2007. Michael also studied shinkyoku (new music) under Sugawara Kuniyoshi in Japan
From 1986 to 2009, Michael taught full-time at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and took over teaching shakuhachi there from Iwamoto Yoshikazu from 1992 onwards. In 2006, he was one of the co-founders of the European Shakuhachi Society (ESS), a registered charity to promote an understanding and dissemination of shakuhachi and Japanese music throughout Europe, and has been organising and teaching many ESS Summer Schools and online workshops since then including the World Shakuhachi Festival in 2018.
Michael has performed widely in Japan and Europe with some of Japan’s finest koto, shamisen and shakuhachi players including performances at the National Theatre, Tokyo, and continues to teach shakuhachi honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku music in the UK. He is a member of the Hibiki Ensemble with Kitamura Keiko and is also head of the UK branch of Chikumeisha.
Horacio Curti
Schools/styles taught: Koten Honkyoku Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan style, Improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei
Languages: Spanish, English, Catalán and some Portuguese
Teaching Locations: Barcelona and other places in Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.es, shakuhachies.wordpress.com/
Email: horacio.curti@gmail.com
Biography: Horacio Curti encountered the Shakuhachi for the first time on the Indian Himalayas. Fascinated by its sound, decided to go to Japan where he started his studies under Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei focusing on the Koten Honkyoku music. There he received his Shakuhachi Shihan (Shakuhachi master degree) from Yokoyama Katsuya Sensei in 2004.
Besides his work with the Koten Honkyoku, he started researching on contemporary forms such as “free improvised music” collaborating both with musicians and dancers, poetry and theatre, and especially “western classical contemporary music” both solo and as part of the Mei trio, premiering several compositions.
He has performed and taught in Argentina, Chile, Belgium, Holland, UK, France, Japan, Spain and USA.
He completed his studies in Ethnomusicology in 2005, specializing in Japanese music practices. At present he is teacher at the “Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya” and “SAE Barcelona”.
After several free improvised music recordings, in 2009 was published his first solo album, ichi, by Agharta Music. In 2012 Viena Edicions released the Book-CD “Contes Zen. Petites històries per despertar” a compilation of Zen stories by Marta Millà accompanied by a disc with a narration of some of the stories with music by Horacio Curti. More information in www.shakuhachi.es
Kiku Day
Schools/styles taught: Zensabō, contemporary music, min’yō, improvisation and meditation and shakuhachi
Teacher’s teacher: Okuda Atsuya
Languages: Danish, English, French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Denmark
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.kikuday.com
Email: kikuday@gmail.com
Biography:
Kiku Day (PhD, London; MFA, Mills; BA, London) is a jinashi shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist.
Dr Day trained shakuhachi playing with Okuda Atsuya for more than a decade in Japan and since her return to Europe has dedicated her life to the dissemination of the shakuhachi on that continent. She is a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society, which she currently serves as chairperson. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith and Joanna MacGregor and as a soloist with the Nonsuch Choir and with Odense Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu Tōru’s November Steps. Day is always exploring new possibilities with the shakuhachi in unconventional collaborations such as dance, narrative performance and film.
Her research has been mainly performance based and focused in particular on the potential use of the jinashi shakuhach in contemporary performance. Her teaching spans from the repertoire of Zensabō to shakuhachi and meditation and improvisation. Her aim is to help disseminate the knowledge and love for the shakuhachi. Her love of teaching shakuhachi has been noticed by many of her students.
Day is presently living at the meditation centre, Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede, Denmark.
Fiore De Mattia (Sei-Chiku)
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Honkyoku
Teachers’ teacher: Daniel Lifermann, Teruhisa Fukuda
Languages: Italian
Teaching Locations: Alzano Lombardo (BG), Borgone (TO), Italy
Skype lessons: No
Address/website:
Fiore De Mattia, Via Marconi 12, 24022 Alzano Lombardo (BG), Italy
tel. 035511259
cell. 346 8122492
Email: fiore@flautoshakuhachi.it
Biography: Fiore De Mattia, Italy (1960)
– I am a member of the French society “La Voie Du Bambou”, whose purpose is to teach and disseminate Shakuhachi.
– In 2003, I began learning Shakuhachi with Master Daniel LIFERMANN and as of 2006, I continued studying under the guidance of Master Teruhisa FUKUDA, from the Kinko school “Hijiri”/ “Sainte École”.
– Since 2012, I hold concerts in Italy and France : “The Sound of Zen Buddhism”.
– In 2013, I achieved the title of Shihan, granted by Master Tehurisha FUKUDA
Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Schools/styles taught: Kinko, Taizan, Nezasa Ha,
Teachers’ Teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller,
Shimura Zenpô Satoshi, Kawase Junsuke III
Languages: Swiss, German, French, English
Teaching Locations: Basel and Bern, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Email: ueli.derendinger@bluewin.ch
Biography: 1954 in Olten geboren und aufgewachsen. Studium der Querflöte bei Felix Manz an der Musik-Akademie Basel. 1980 – 1988 Studium der japanischen Bambusflöte Shakuhachi bei Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller in Basel (Kinko-Stil), 1988-89 bei Shimura Zenpô Satoshi in Osaka (Myôan-Stil). 1998 Verleihung des Meistertitels (shihan) und des Meisternamens Fuyûru durch Kawase Junsuke III Tôkyô (Kinko-Stil). 2008 Weiterbildung bei Shimura Zenpô Satoshi in Japan.
Im Jahr 2002 erhielt Ueli Derendinger von seinem Heimatkanton Solothurn den Kulturpreis für Musik.
Ueli Derendinger gibt regelmässig Solokonzerte im In- und Ausland mit Stücken des klassischen Shakuhachi Repertoires und zeitgenössischer Musik für Shakuhachi. Er tritt aber auch immer wieder in Verbindung mit anderen Kunstgattungen auf, so etwa in den Bereichen Tanz, japanische Kalligraphie, westliche bildende Kunst und Literatur. Mit den Tänzerinnen Chin Kham Yoke (Malaysia), Heidi S. Durning (Japan), Silvia Buol (Schweiz), den Kalligraphen Sanae Sakamoto und Hiroyuki Matsumoto, dem Künstler Martin Cleiss, dem Schriftsteller Tim Krohn, den Musikern Lukas Rohner, Jürg Zurmühle (Shakuhachi) und Silvain Guignard (Biwa) hat er verschiedene Performances erarbeitet und in Japan, Deutschland und der Schweiz zur Aufführung gebracht. Dabei spielt die Improvisation, die ihm seit seinen Jugendjahren lieb und wichtig ist, eine grosse Rolle. Die weite Dynamik und Klangvielfalt sowie die Möglichkeit zu Glissandi und mikrotonalen Veränderungen prädestinieren die Shakuhachi geradezu für die improvisierte Musik.
1999 gründete Ueli Derendinger zusammen mit dem Alphornspieler Balthasar Streiff (stimmhorn) das Duo sanshi/purpurberg. Japanische und schweizerische Tradition treffen aufeinander, durch Improvisation und freies Spiel werden Grenzen gesprengt, der Dialog gelingt.
Robin Eve/Iburozan
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan Ryu
Teachers’ teacher: Nakamura Seizan
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Bristol, UK; Kobe, Japan
Skype lessons: No
Email: iburozan@gmail.com
Biography: Robin Eve, artistic name, Iburozan, trained as a horn player, then started playing shakuhachi in 1972. Since living full time in Japan from 1989, he has been active in traditional music playing, and also diversifying into western music, classical, jazz folk, etc.
Obtained teacher’s (shihan) licence in 1997, and ‘grand-master’(daishihan) licence in 2001.Won honkyoku contests in 1996, 1998, and 2003, at three different grades.
He performs regularly, sankyoku, etc, and teaches. He also arranges and composes music for shakuhachi, and other instruments. Particularly interested in ensemble music for shakuhachi groups, such as Nakao Tozan compositions.
In 2015 was invited to perform solo at the Moon Festival at World Heritage Site Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto. In 2016 he was an examiner for the practical exams of the Shin Tozan Ryu.
Jim Franklin
Schools/styles taught: KSK, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Dr Riley Lee, Furuya Teruo, Yokoyama Katsuya
Languages: English and German
Teaching Locations: Japan, worldwide (lessons via internet)
Skype/FaceTime/Zoom lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.bambooheart.com
1-23-13 Ichiriyama
Ōtsu-shi, Shiga-ken 520-2153
Japan
Tel. +81 77 599 0522
Email: dr_jim_franklin@t-online.de
Biography: Dr Jim Franklin is a master performer of the shakuhachi in the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan. He initially studied composition and musicology in Australia, Germany and Holland and during his studies, he encountered the shakuhachi, and was fascinated by it. After learning the instrument in Australia with Dr Riley Lee and in Japan with Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya, he received the title Shihan (Master) in 1996 from Yokoyama Katsuya.
In the area of solo shakuhachi, Franklin has specialized in the honkyoku lineage of Yokoyama Katsuya and in modern music. His concert activities extend throughout Europe as well as in Japan, where he currently lives. He has released two CDs of shakuhachi honkyoku (‘Hearing Stillness’ and ‘Zen Garden Meditations’) and a further CD of his own shakuhachi solo pieces (Butsuga), as well as several CDs of compositions and improvisations with other musicians (‘Water Spirits’, ‘Moon Road to Dawn’, ‘Abundance’, ‘Aurora’, ‘Nine-Elemental Songs’, ‘Journey of Simurgh’, ‘Trees, Stones, Water, Sand’), on the Celestial Harmonies label and with other labels.
As a composer, Franklin is active in the areas of contemporary and electroacoustic music. He composes for shakuhachi solo and in combination with other instruments, and frequently performs projects with shakuhachi and live electronics, sometimes in combination with dance and video art. The interface between shakuhachi and electronics, and shakuhachi and visual media, is a key area of interest. His works, ‘Three Treasures: Columns and Webs’ (realized in 1996 as Composer-in-Residence at the Centre for Computer Music, Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo) and his CD ‘Songs from the Lake’ (NEOS 12029, released 2021) are representative of this musical direction.
From 2004 to 2021 Franklin lived in Germany. As a teacher, he gave individual lessons in a number of cities, including Mainz, Stuttgart, Hannover, Bergisch Gladbach (near Cologne), Heidelberg, Bamberg and Nuremberg. He offered regular workshops for beginners as well as advanced students. In 2021 he and his wife, shakuhachi player and visual artist Hiroko Sugino, emigrated to Japan; they now live in Seta, near Kyoto. As well as teaching (face-to-face and online) and performing, he now focuses on composing for shakuhachi.
Prior to emigrating to Germany in 2004, Franklin was Senior Lecturer in Music Technology in the Music Department of University of Western Sydney, including a period as Head of Department (1997-98). His connection to the academic world has been maintained through occasional publications such as the articles “Japanese Shakuhachi Honkyoku Tradition and its Reinterpretation into a Contemporary Composition Practice” (in ‘Music of the Spirit: Asian-Pacific Identity’, Australian Music Centre, 2008) and “Compositional Encounters with Shakuhachi” (in ‘The Annual of Texts by Foreign Guest Professors’, Charles University, Prague, 2008).
Franklin was instrumental in the founding of the European Shakuhachi Society, and was its foundation chairperson, from 2006 to 2009. He has taught and performed at many of the European Shakuhachi Summer Schools, including 2006, 2007 (organised together with Véronique Piron), 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 (organised by him in Radolfzell, Germany), 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. For many years he was also a regular performer and teacher at the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festivals.
Franklin was one of the principal organisers of the World Shakuhachi Festival in London, 2018, being responsible for programme and budget, as well as performing and teaching at the event. He has also been active at most other WSFs: teaching and performing in Boulder 1998, New York 2002, and Sydney 2008 (at which he also assumed the role of programme coordinator). He performed at Kyoto 2012.
Adrian Freedman
Schools/styles taught: KSK/Chikushinkai
Teacher’s teacher: Katsuya Yokoyama, Clive Bell
Languages: English, Portuguese and a little French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Dartington, SW. England
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.adrianfreedman.com
Email: pureland33@gmail.com
Biography: Adrian was born in Leeds, N. England in 1962 and studied music at Manchester University (1983) and at The Guildhall School of Music (1986) and has always had a broad range of musical interests, from baroque music to contemporary classical, from jazz to folk.
He began studying the shakuhachi in London with Clive Bell and then moved to Japan in 1990 where he lived for eight years devoted to the study of koten honkyoku repertoire with Yokoyama Katsuya. At this time, he also had a government scholarship as a research fellow at Kyoto University.
After leaving Japan, he spent several years in the Brazilian Amazon immersed in the study and practice of ritual music. Adrian has worked as a composer and musical director for many theatre and dance companies and has taught music projects in over 100 schools and colleges. He has used the shakuhachi in collaboration with musicians from around the globe including the African kora, Arabian oud and the Brazilian berimbau. Currently, he is based in Dartington, SW. England.
Adrian’s approach to shakuhachi teaching rests upon a deep resonance with the principle of ichion jobutsu…the universe within a single tone. He tailors his teaching style to the needs of each individual student.
TEACHERS G – L
Christophe «Kazan» (歌山) Gaston
School: Shin Tozan Ryû (also trained in Kinko Ryû chikumeisha style)
Teacher: Sôzan Chiaki Kariya, Gunnar Jinmei Linder
Languages: French, English
Teaching Location: South Paris (Montlhéry)
Skype lessons: Yes
Email: christophe.gaston09@gmail.com
Biography: Christophe «Kazan» (歌山) Gaston is a shihan of the Shin-Tozan Ryû. He learnt shakuhachi under the guidance of Sôzan Chiaki Kariya, chair person of the french branch. He also studies the Kinko Ryû repertoire in the style of Yamaguchi Goro (Chikumeisha) with Gunnar Jinmei Linder. Besides his interest in all forms of honkyokus he regularly performs with the koto player Akari Sagara and with jazz and contemporary musicians. He is the contact person of the Chikumeisha french lesson center in France and the main organizer of the workshop series driven by Gunnar Linder in France.
Markus Guhe
Schools/styles taught: Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan (KSK)
Teacher: Kaoru Kakizakai, Clive Bell
Languages: English, German
Teaching Locations: Edinburgh, UK; Papenburg, Germany
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: markusguhe.net
Email: markusguhe@icloud.com
Biography: Dr. Markus Guhe has been performing with the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers since 2011, doing multiple tours per year and countless performances abroad. He discovered the shakuhachi on a taiko research trip to Japan in 2012, and now the the shakuhachi is his main instrument.
In 2016 he received a shihan (master’s license) from his teacher Kaoru Kakizakai, authorising him to teach and continue the lineage of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) established by Katsuya Yokoyama.
In 2017 he won the prestigious KSK scholarship to study with his teacher in Japan.
In 2018 he released his first CD (Samazama) featuring a mix of traditional shakuhachi solo pieces and modern, self-composed music.
In 2021 he started regularly posting videos on YouTube on playing shakuhachi.
Nina Haarer
Schools/styles taught: KSK, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher: Dr Jim Franklin, Furuya Teruo
Languages: German, English, French, Japanese
Teaching Location: Germany
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: www.facebook.com/Nina-H
Address: Alte Esslinger Str. 10, 71394 Kernen i. R., Germany
Telephone: +49 178 6020272
Email: nina.haarer@web.de
Biography: Nina Haarer is a German Shakuhachi player and teacher. Initially trained as a singer and piano player, Nina discovered the shakuhachi when she was still a teenager, along with the Japanese language.
In 2004 she started lessons with Jim Franklin in the styles of Chikuhō and Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK). In 2018 she was awarded the KSK Europe Scholarship and studied with Furuya Teruo in Tokyo. She was awarded a shihan menjō in 2019.
Besides the traditional repertoire Nina combines the shakuhachi with different forms of art and genres, like modern dance or theater. Regular projects have been: DieTanzKompanie by Grégory Darcy and Theater Hebebühne. Her concern to bring the shakuhachi to the younger generation / a new audience found way in two punk/gothic rock bands: The Nerves (2010–2021) and Totentanz Strumpfsockig.
She is also including the shakuhachi in her job as a music therapist. Nina is the current secretary of the European Shakuhachi Society.
Wolfgang Fuyûgen Heßler
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu, Itchoken Ryu
Teacher’s teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller, Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Zürich, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.komuso.ch
Email: w.hessler@komuso.ch
Biography: Wolfgang Hessler belongs to a modern generation of musicians, who’s education and work is based not only on the music of one culture.
Grown up in Munich he studied doublebass with Herbert Duft and graduated from the Munich College of Music. Following he worked at the Orchestra of the State-Opera (National Theatre Munich), the Munich Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony-Orchestra, partly still during his studies.
In Switzerland Wolfgang Hessler studied the Japanese bamboo-flute shakuhachi in the tradition of the Kinko-School with Dr. Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller at the Studio for extraeuropean Music of the Academie of Music Basel. Several journeys to and study visits in Japan took him to Kawase Junsuke III, head of the Zenkoku Chikuyusha in Tokyo, who performed the Shihan-Menyô-Ceremony for him to confirm the reception of the tradition. In addition, Wolfgang Hessler studied with Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada in the tradition of the temple Itchôken (Hakata/Kyûshu). Wolfgang Hessler lives and teaches in Zurich, performing in concerts and recitals traditional Japanese music (honkyoku and gaikyoku) and modern music as well as with improvisation ensembles.
Influenced by Sergiu Celibidache, affected by the practice of playing the shakuhachi as an exercise in concentration and respiration of the Fuke-monks in Japan, he dedicates his activity to the spiritual dimension of making music. Leaving behind any concept and construct, any will and intention, making music happens as activity in alertness and concentration, guided by one’s proper breath and the almost unexhaustable tone colour of the shakuhachi.
IT plays. This is not extraneous to western music, but hardly anyone knows about that nowadays.
Philip Horan
Schools/styles taught:
Teacher’s teacher:
Languages:
Teaching Locations:
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.shakuhachizen.com
Email: phil@shakuhachizen.com
Biography: Philip Horan spent two years in Japan, studying the repertoire of the Tozan-ryu in Hiroshima. He studied shakuhachi with Sunny Yeung (Hong Kong), Hanaoka Seizan (Hiroshima), Kiku Day and Jean-François Lagrost.
He completed a Masters in Ethnomusicology at the Irish World Music Centre in Limerick, focusing on shakuhachi acoustics and aesthetics. He regularly performs Irish and Celtic musics on shakuhachi.
Sôzan C. Kariya
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Kariya Haruki
Languages: Japanese, French and English
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.shintozanryu-france.com
Email: sozanc.kariya@dbmail.com
Biography: Sôzan Chiaki Kariya est né 1950 à Hyogo, prés d’Osaka. Il commence à étudier le shakuhachi à l’âge de 13 ans avec son père, conseiller de Shin Tozan Ryû, élève de Ichizan Hoshida, 1er et fondateur de la branche Singensha de l’école Ikuta de koto. Il acquiert le titre de Grand Maitre (daishihan) de shakuhachi et nommé le représentant de l’école Shin Tozan Ryû en France.
Il a également appris le violoncelle au conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris avec Maurice Gendron et Jacqueline Heuclin. Il a reçu le 1er prix d’honneur au concours international de l’U.F.A.M. de Paris et 1er prix de concours Bellan au violoncelle en 1975 et nommé à membre du jury du concours U.F.A.M. en 1976. Il était un de membre sociétaire de l’orchestre symphonique de concert pasdeloup.
Sôzan Kariya a beaucoup d’activitès musicale en France, en Belgique, au Japon, en Allemagne et en Angleterre. Il a notamment eu un grand succès au festival Womad de Londres pour son shakuhachi solo. On a pu le voir sur TF1, sur france 3, concert de shakuhachi au Musée Guimet avec Mr Iwamoto et soliste pour l’orchestre symphonique de musique comtemporaine. Plusieurs CD sont sorti. Outre son activité de concertiste, Sôzan Kariya est professeur de shakuhachi et de violoncelle à l’école de musique SNCF de Paris et membre de la SACEM.
Jon Kypros
Schools/styles taught: Fudaiji Seien Ryu and Myoan Taizan Ha versions, Kinpu Ryu, Myoan Shinpo Ryu, Oshu kei, Echigo Myoanji Den, Kyushu kei, Jin Nyodo kei, and Chikushinkai.
Teacher’s teacher: Justin Senryu Williams, Ronnie Nyogetsu Reishin Seldin, Kurahashi Yodo II
Languages: English and learning French
Teaching Locations: Toulouse, France; Online
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: https://josenshakuhachi.com
Email: flutedojo@gmail.com
Biography: It’s been my great joy to be a full-time shakuhachi teacher and craftsperson for over twenty years and counting. I hold the title of Dai Shihan or ‘Grandmaster’ of the shakuhachi school Senryu Kai, given to me by Justin Senryu Williams. I practice Zen Buddhism, both of which I will cultivate for the rest of my life. (You might be familiar with my previous works, The Bell Shakuhachi and my book, Your Shakuhachi Journey.)
Suizan J.-F. Lagrost (ラグロ水山)
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū, KSK, Contemporary, Sankyoku and Shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Sōzan Kariya (Shin Tozan-Ryū), Véronique Piron (KSK)
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.flute-shakuhachi.com
Email: lagrost@flute-shakuhachi.com
Biography: Suizan J.-F. Lagrost is professor of art education at the Conservatories of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre and Asnières near Paris. As a versatile musician, he excels in both the Western and Japanese musics. After a traditional curriculum of concert flute in Mulhouse and Paris, then a DEA of Music of the 20th century at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he began the shakuhachi in 2000 (Tozan style) and obtained in 2014 the title of Dai-Shihan (grand master).
The diversity of his expertise conducts him to appear in a variety of backgrounds : the Ensemble de flûtes de Paris, flute & piano recitals in Taiwan, as a soloist with the Musique de la Garde républicaine, as well as Summer Schools and Festivals of shakuhachi in Europe (Barcelona, Prague, etc.)
He published in 2013 a Japanese chamber music CD entitled “Kyoku” with the koto player Mieko Miyazaki.
As a Senior Advisor of the European Shakuhachi Society, he has founded and administered since 2011 the world’s main forum of shakuhachi (www.shakuhachiforum.eu).
Isabel Lerchmüller
Schools/styles taught: Myoan Taizan Ha, Improvisation, traditional and contemporary
Teacher’s teacher: Ueli Furûyu Derendinger
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Bern, Switzerland
Skype lessons: only if there is no other possibility
Address/website: isabellerchmueller.ch
Email: isa.lerch@gmx.ch
Biography: Isabel Lerchmüller lives in Bern (Switzerland) and works as a freelance musician and teacher for flute and shakuhachi.
After receiving her teaching diploma for flute in 2005, she specialized in free improvisation. 2009 Isabel began studying shakuhachi with Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger and continued to deepen her knowledge of Japanese culture. She enjoyed several extended stays in Japan and further shakuhachi studies with Kawase Junsuke sensei III and Kawase Yousuke sensei in Tokyo.
Isabel performs as a solo artist and chamber musician. She is flutist in the OPUS Bern Orchestra and is regularly invited to perform in cross-disciplinary productions.
Isabel teaches private lessons and group workshops. She loves to play not only the regular flute and the 1.8 shakuhachi, but also alto flute, bass flute and various shakuhachi up to 2.7. Sharing musical moments means a lot to her – in concerts as well as in teaching.
Daniel Lifermann
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri school, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Franck Noël
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.fr
Address: La Voie du Bambou, 19 rue de Conflans, F-94220 Charenton
Tel/Fax: 33 (0)1 43 53 25 60
Email: nardlife18@gmail.com
Biography: Daniel LIFERMANN started learning shakuhachi in 1983 during a trip to Japan. Back in France he studied with Franck NOËL (a YOKOYAMA’s student). From 1989 to 1997 he studied with Yoshikazu IWAMOTO. He also studied with Gunnar JINMEI LINDER.
Since 1999 he is a follower of Teruhisa FUKUDA (Kohachiro MIYATA’s student and founder of the Hijiri school /Sainte-École), with whom he regularly organizes intensive courses, he obtained the title of Dai Shihan and the name of “Sei Soku” (“breath of wisdom “) in 2008.
Since 1988, Daniel LIFERMANN teaches the shakuhachi, and in 1994 he founded the French association La Voie du Bambou, whose purpose is to spread wings and practice of shakuhachi. He works tirelessly to share what he received from the various masters he met and performs regularly in concert.
Daniel Lifermann s’est initié au shakuhachi en 1983 au Japon. Il a étudié avec Iwamoto Yoshikazu et Fukuda Teruhisa. En 1994, il fonde l’association française, ‘La Voie du Bambou’. Il enseigne depuis 1988 et rassemble autour de lui actuellement 25 étudiants. Il se produit régulièrement en France. Répertoires favoris: Honkyoku et pièces contemporaines. Particulièrement impliqué dans la transmission de la spiritualité dans la musique.
Gunnar Jinmei Linder
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Gorō
Languages: Swedish, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Sweden and Scandinavia
Skype lessons: gunnar_linder_in_tokyo
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.biz
Kallangsvagen 7, 2 tr, S-181 43 Lidingo
Telephone: +46 (0)8 731 04 61
Mobile: +46 (0)708 32 33 14
Email: shakuhachi.biz@mac.com
Biography: Gunnar Linder started to learn shakuhachi after arriving in Japan in 1985. He studied with Yamaguchi Gorō (Kinko-ryū, Chikumeisha) from 1985 from whom he received his shakuhachi Shihan (Chikumeisha Kinko-ryu Master’s Licence) and continued his studies in Japan until 2005. He is on the Council of Chikumeisha (chikumeisha hyōgi-in). Gunnar now lives and teaches in Stockholm, Sweden
* Head of Chikumeisha European Branch; keiko-ba in Stockholm.
* Head of Chikumeisha. Tachikawa Branch.
* Member of Kinko-ryū Kyōkai, Nihon Sankyoku Kyōkai, Komusō Kenkyūkai.
* Ph.D. in Japanology: Stockholm University.
* M.A. in Shakuhachi as Performing Art: Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku.
* B.A. in Japanology and Philosophy. Main genres: kinko-ryū honkyoku, sankyoku (jiuta-sōkyoku), improvisation.
Hans van Loon
Schools/styles taught: Kyotaku-tradition
Languages: Dutch
Teaching Locations: The Netherlands
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.kyotaku.nl
Drielindekensdijk 1
4651 PH Steenbergen
The Netherlands
Email: hans@kyotaku.nl
Biography: Hans van Loon teaches kyotaku at his home for students from the Netherlands and Belgium. Although kyotaku has several meanings, Hans focusses on the kind of shakuhachi Koku Nishimura taught and built which is a jinashi shakuhachi with a big bore and a long length. The music played with the Kyotaku is simple and is played with a meditative attitude; the mindset while playing is more important than the result.
TEACHERS M – R
Sergey Maksymenko
Schools/styles taught: Zensabo style Honkyoku
Teacher’s teacher Kiku Day
Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English
Teaching Locations: Kiev, Ukraine
Skype lessons: sernamaksy
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.com.ua
https://www.facebook.com/bamboolaboratory
Email: hachigaeshi@gmail.com
Biography: The first time I heard the shakuhachi in 2000, on a CD. This was the beginning, Honshirabe by Kohachiro Miyata. Later, an incredible sound of Tamuke, by Riley Lee prompted me to start the search an instrument. I’m interested in what makes a tool for these beautiful and sad sounds.
The first steps in studying of shakuhachi I started to make by myself, as in Ukraine, no teachers. I was helped by friends such as enthusiastic as I am. Then I started taking lessons from the masters in Skype. I took a few lessons from Kaoru Kakizakai, Michael Chikuzen Gould. I met with Kiku Day in 2008 in Kiev, and in 2010 after the European Shakuhachi Festival in Prague became her student. In 2012 I took part in WSF in Kyoto. In Tokyo I studied with Okuda Atsuya. Now I continue to learn Zensabo repertoire under Kiku’s leadership, and teach beginners in Kiev and Ukraine.
I have a project “MA”. This is improvised music of shakuhachi, singing bowls, tanpura. In 2013 our album “Guide” was released.
Vlastislav Matoušek
Schools/styles taught: Contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Kifu Mitsuhashi
Languages: Czech
Teaching Locations: Prague, Czech Republic
Skype lessons:
Address/website: Vlastislav Matousek
Email: matousek@shakuhachi.cz
Biography:
Marek Kimei Matvija
Schools/styles taught: Kifu-kai, Myoan style
Teacher’s teacher: Kifu Mitsuhashi, Vlastislav Matoušek
Languages: Czech, English
Teaching Locations: Prague (at NEIRO Association for Expanding Arts)
Skype lessons: no
Address/website: www.matvija.cz
Email: marek@neiro.org
Biography:
Marek Kimei Matvija
*1985
Czech master player of the shakuhachi, Japanese bamboo flute. He is a performer of contemporary, improvised, and Japanese traditional ensemble and solo music. He has graduated at the Centre for Audiovisual Studies of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) and has studied under Czech pioneer of the shakuhachi and a composer, Vlastislav Matoušek. Since 2009, Marek continues his studies with Matoušek’s teacher Mitsuhashi Kifu. In 2017, he was awarded the title nattori shihan of the Kifu-kai and a performance name Kimei, 貴明.
Marek Matvija has performed throughout the Czech Republic and in Japan, Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, USA and Portugal. He is a member of the Topos Kolektiv, ensemble for site-specific improvised music, and the artistic director of the International Shakuhachi Festival Prague.
Torsten Olafsson
Schools/styles taught: Myôan Taizan-ha
Teachers’ teacher: Ozawa Seizan
Languages: Danish, Swedish, English, German, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Elsinore/Helsingør, Denmark
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.torstenolafsson.dk
Email: myooan@gmail.com
Biography: Born in January 1950 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Torsten studied music from very early childhood and on: Piano, recorder, singing, bugle, drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar, vibraphone, tablas, percussion – then shakuhachi, a little koto, acoustic bass guitar and – as of lately: arabic darbuka.
First professional appearances as a pop/rock drummer in 1964-65.
1965-68: Specialized language & classical music studies in high school.
1968: Formed the symphonic rock band ACHE, who composed the world’s first genuine rock ballet, ‘De Homine Urbano’ in 1969, released on LP in 1970 (Philips) & re-released six times since then, internationally. Second ACHE album, ‘Green Man’, 1971, also reissued six times, worldwide.
1968: Began university studies in Chinese Language and Culture. BA degree in 1974.
1974: Began university studies in Japanese Language and Culture.
1977-78: Studies in Japan: Kyōto University foreign research student, and Myōan-ji, Taizan-ha shakuhachi, with Ozawa Seizan sensei, Yamashina, Kyōto.
1981: BA degree in Japanese/Japanology.
1983: Records the LP ‘Standing Waves – Zen Shakuhachi Meditations’ (Olafssongs OLP 001).
1986: Special research in the Tōkyō area. Shakuhachi studies with Yokoyama Katsuya in Chiba.
1987: MA thesis in Japanology submitted to the University of Copenhagen: ‘Early 17th Century Ascetic Shakuhachi Ideology. The Kaidō honsoku. A Komosō’s Fuke Shakuhachi Credo, dated 1628.’
1991-2000: Print Manager, then Serious Music Manager with Warner/Chappell Music Denmark A/S.
1997: On invitation by then International Shakuhachi Society president, the late Dan E. Mayers, Esq., Torsten writes an introductory essay to the ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis.
2001: ‘Standing Waves’ is re-released on CD by Fønix Musik, Denmark (Fønix Musik FM 1183).
2003: The ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis together with the introductory essay is printed and published internationally by Monty H. Levenson/Tai Hei Shakuhachi, Willits, California, USA.
2003: Website about Fuke Shakuhachi research is launched, now: www.torstenolafsson.dk.
2005: Introductory essay about the ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis is published by the ISS, in Annals vol. 2.
2008: The late Prof. Tsukitani Tsuneko concludes in her article in the book “The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music”: ‘The body of shakuhachi researchers in Japan is relatively small; names that recur in the bibliography include Kamisangō, Tsukitani/Tukitani, Seyama and Simura/Shimura. It is regrettable that the most conspicuous work is being produced not in Japan but by scholars abroad. (See the works by Fritsch, Gutzwiller, Keister, Lee, Olafsson.)’
Torsten Olafsson has contributed as a versatile studio musician to at least 40 Danish music albums; as a professional graphic artist created more than 60 music album cover designs; transcribed, music engraved, typeset and layouted well over 1.300 Danish pop, rock, jazz, folk & instrumental guitar music pieces and, since 1980, in his capacity as music editor and publishing company music editor and print manager, produced several hundred sheet music and music book titles.
Torsten is currently – beside his various shakuhachi activities – working closely with his younger brother, internationally renowned guitarist Finn Olafsson, OIafssongs Music Publishers DK, as a studio and concert musician, music editor, graphics designer, photographer, and webmaster.
Antonio Enzan Olías - アントニオ · 炎山 · オリアス
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu Chikumeisha, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan,
Tozan, Fukeshu Shakuhachi, Gendai Hogaku “Japanese Contemporary Music”.
Teachers’ teacher: Tanaka Komei, Teruhisa Fukuda, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi,
Kuniyoshi Sugawara, Tanabe Shozan, Katoh Hidekazu, Anne Norman
Languages: Spanish, English
Teaching Locations: Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: –
Email: antonio.enzan@gmail.com
Biography: Antonio Enzan took up the shakuhachi in 2001 whilst he was living in Melbourne Australia and he started lessons with Anne Norman. In 2005 he was awarded with the Gen Foundation Grant and the AIE Grant to further his shakuhachi studies in Japan.
He received instruction under the direction of the best shakuhachi masters. In classic styles he studied with Tanaka Komei, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi. Modern and Contemporary music with Teruhisa Fukuda, Kuniyoshi Sugawara and Tanabe Shôzan.
In 2011 Etsuzan Fujiyoshi sensei awarded him with the professional name Saiho Enzan ·西方炎山· that means Fire Mountain from the West. In 2014 Teruhisa Fukuda awarded him with the Shakuhachi Dai Shihan “Grand Shakuhachi Master” license.
He has performed in Japan, Egypt, India, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Belgium and widely in Spain. He recorded his first album “Encuentros” in 2007 in Japan. He has collaborated with the especialist in Medieval Music Eduardo Paniagua recording the album “Cantigas de Nuestro Señor” performing Medieval Music Composed by Alphonse X The Wise. He has recently collaborated in the album of Erwin Grafe “Canciones Incrustables”.
Véronique Piron
Schools/styles taught: KSK, traditional and modern styles
Teacher’s teacher: : Katsuya YOKOYAMA, Teruo FURUYA, Yoshikazu IWAMOTO
Languages: French, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: France (Paris and Bretagne)
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.veroniquepiron.com (français) / www.veroniquepiron.com/en (english)
Email: nipponflutes@gmail.com
Biography: Véronique Piron is a French flautist and a shakuhachi player. She received her shakuhachi Master’s Licence Shihan from Yokoyama Katsuya in 2002 while awarded a Lavoisier research grant from the French government for studying in Japan. She has participated in the creation of the ESS, being an officer until 2012, and the development of the shakuhachi in Europe. In Japan, she also learned nohkan and shinobue from Nishikawa Kohei of the Ensemble Pro-Nipponia, which lead her later to get a French State Diploma and a Professor’s licence, for teaching Japanese traditional music in the French conservatorium system. Based in West of France (Bretagne), she is produced by “Big Bravo Spectacles-production” in a Japanese music programme and in a creative music programme. She has recorded several shakuhachi CDs.
Ôno Ranzan
Schools/styles taught: Fuke Shakuhachi (from different branches and temples),
Hitoyogiri flute, Shinobiryû Shakuhachi (Ninja’s Shakuhachi)
Teacher’s teacher: Fujiyoshi Etsuzan
Languages: French, English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.fuke-shakuhachi.com
Email: ranzan88@gmail.com
Biography: An expert in different martial arts he is practicing since his childhood, Ôno Ranzan is the first and only non-Japanese who has received the
title of Zen Grand Master of the Fuke-shû Shakuhachi (普化宗尺八看主). He raises awareness of the Shakuhachi of the orthodox school by performing recitals and lectures and is teaching his art in Japan and Europe.
Perfectly bilingual in Japanese, he is also carrying out researches on the history of the Fuke Shakuhachi, and has published a thesis about the Great Fuke Sect, its history, philosophy, and musical principals.
At the same time, he is making Jinashi Shakuhachi and Hitoyogiri flutes following old and traditional methods. Besides Shakuhachi, Ôno Ranzan is also a renown player of Hitoyogiri.
Rodrigo Rodriguez
Schools/styles taught: Mu Ryu, Kinko Ryu, Dokyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miyata, Kakizakai Kaoru
Languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Catalan.
Teaching Locations: Spain, Portugal
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Email: info@rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Biography: Rodrigo Rodriguez is a shakuhachi player internationally known specialist in the Japanese flute, has performed in numerous concert halls in Asia, Europe, South Pacific and Latin America.
Among his important tours he performed in the “Tokyo Imperial Hotel” events NHK, in the temple of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, or Tchaivkosky Conservatory, Moscow Russia.
He has lived and studied in Japan with the renowned master of Japan’s leading players of shakuhachi Miyata Kohachiro, and Kakizakai Kaoru.
Emmanuelle Rouaud
Schools/styles taught: General introduction to shakuhachi & Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) repertoire
Teacher’s teacher: Teruo Furuya
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.emmanuelle-rouaud.com
Email: emmanuelle.rouaud@orange.fr
Biography: Emmanuelle Rouaud discovered the shakuhachi in 2006 and was fascinated by the possibilities of tone colour and sounds and began exploring the instrument.
Since 2013 Emmanuelle is studying the honkyoku and modern repertoire with Teruo Furuya, the director of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) in Japan and recently received her teaching license (shihan) from Teruo Furuya.
Emmanuelle is also interested in traditional sankyoku ensemble playing and has received tuition from players like Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel and Keisuke Zenyoji among others.
Her interest in developing new repertoire for shakuhachi led her to a collaboration with French composer Henri Algadafe and premiering I thought About Eva for shakuhachi and koto at the World Shakuhachi Festival in London in 2018. Currently they are working on a new composition for electric guitar, electronics and 2.4 shakuhachi.
Emmanuelle performs shakuhachi music regularly, most recently with koto players Naoko Kikuchi and Gaho Takahashi, she also was one of the finalists of the honkyoku competition at the KSK’s 30th anniversary event in 2019 in Bisei, Japan.
Emmanuelle Rouaud lives and works near Paris, France. There she co-organises the annual Teruo Furuya/Mizuka Onishi workshop in Paris, developing shakuhachi classes in CRC Montigny-le-Bretonneux as well as teaches the silver flute (CRR Versailles Grand Parc) and offers shakuhachi teaching through her collaboration with jiari shakuhachi maker Thorsten Knaub at shakuhachi-atelier.
TEACHERS S – Z
Khagan Kugo SeiSon
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri Kai, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music and improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Daniel Liferman
Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Teruo Furuya
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: https://www.dojodelelephantblanc.fr/cours-ateliers/shakuhachi/
Email: dojodelelephantblanc@gmail.com
Biography: Khagan Kugo SeiSon pratique le shakuhachi depuis 2005 ans en suivant l’enseignement de Daniel Seisoku Liferman et maître Teruhisa Fukuda dans le cadre de l’école Hijiri Kai. Il a aussi étudié avec Teruo Furuya et Gunnar Linder.
Pratiquant le Zen depuis plus de 40 ans en tant que disciple de maître Taisen Deshimaru, et étant artiste de scène et metteur en scène, il aspire à réaliser par la pratique du shakuhachi, la fusion des dimensions spirituelles, méditatives et artistiques de la voie du Bouddha.
Dans son enseignement il transmet autant la pratique méditative de l’instrument que la pratique scénique (pièces traditionnelles et improvisations).
En juillet 2017 il reçoit le titre de Jiun-Shihan de maître Teruhisa Fukuda avec le nom de SeiSon (Incarnation de Sagesse).
En avril 2019 il a reçoit le titre de Shihan de maître Teruhisa Fukuda.
Ursula Fuyûmi Schmidiger-Jasch
Schools/styles taught: Kinko
Teacher’s teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Switzerland, Ober-Kuonimattweg 50, 6010 Kriens/Luzern
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.chikuyusha.ch
Email: u.yashu@hotmail.com
Biography: Since 1988 Ursula Fuyûmi Schmidiger has stuidied the art of traditional Japanese archery and heads the Kyudo group Shoken, Kriens/Luzern. Within the framework of a Kyudo seminar she experienced shakuhachi music for the first time live and was fascinated by the sound of this instrument. In the summer of 1998, she began studying the shakuhachi at the Studio of non-European music at the Music Academy in the city of Basel with Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller, master in the tradition of the Kinko school. In September 2010 she received the teaching diploma (shihan menjô) Zenkoku Chikuyûsha and was granted the master name Fuyûmi in Tokyo by Kawase Junsuke lll.
Richard Stagg
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu
Teacher’s teacher: Yoshikazu Iwamoto
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Wembley, UK
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: Tel: 0208-200 9593
Email: stagg516@btinternet.com
Biography: Richard Stagg has been a professional orchestral flute-player for the last thirty-five years, working in the Scottish National Orchestra and then in the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, from which he retired in 2008. He has been studying and playing shakuhachi for thirty years, and was a pupil of the late Yoshikazu Iwamoto. He now teaches shakuhachi and makes, repairs and tunes instruments. He performs publicly on the shakuhachi in the UK and in Japan. He has recorded a number of CDs as a member of the Yamato Ensemble, as well as a solo album and a disc of duets with Hidekazu Kato, under the ARC label.
Richard is happy to teach people of any age or level of attainment. After the ‘first note’ stage (however little or long it may take!) he starts his pupils off straightaway learning to read shakuhachi notation (Kinko or Tozan) and he believes in relating this directly to European notation pitch-equivalents at all stages of progress. He teaches the styles of honkyoku and sankyoku from the 17th Century up to and through the 20th. He can give advice on choosing an instrument, and can help in providing or obtaining instruments for beginners who are without them. He always tries to build his pupils’ confidence and to make it fun to learn the shakuhachi.
UnRyū
Schools/styles taught: Myōan
Teacher’s teacher: Ejun Lechika
Languages: Russian
Teaching Locations: Kiev, Ukraine
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.kiev.ua
Email: vladimirlazutkin.wind@yandex.ua
Biography: I practice playing the shakuhachi in the style of Myōan. My teacher is Ejun Lechika. Ejun Lechika Rinzai Zen monk is a certified teacher of the Meian (Myoan). When he was teaching me to play shakuhachi, he told me that a real komusō must create his own flute with his own hands. And the time came where I began to make shakuhachi listening to his advice.
I have performed with my flutes on the Religious festivals in the Conservatoire. I play honkyoku, I say a prayer so that my flute can open its heart to a person listening to it or practising it.
My buddhist name is Un Ryuu (雲龍). This name was given to me by my teacher when he was giving me rakusu.
Also, I have permission from my teacher to teach. I live in the city of Kiev in Ukraine.
Justin Senryu Williams
Schools/styles taught: Honkyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha, Seien Ryu
(Fudaiji temple), Chikushinkai (a.k.a. Dokyoku), Kimpu Ryu (a.k.a. Nezasa Ha), Myoan Shimpo Ryu, Myoan Taizan Ryu, Oshu Kei, Echigo Myoan, Kyushu Kei
Sankyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha
Teacher’s teacher: Araki Kodo V, Yokoyama Katsuya, Furuya Teruo, Iwata Seien VI, Otsubo Shido, Fujiyoshi Etsuzan, Takahashi Rochiku, Sato Jokan, Kurahashi Yodo II, Michael Coxall, Kanda Kayu
Languages: English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: London, England
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.senryushakuhachi.com
Email: Please see www.senryushakuhachi.com
Biography: Justin Senryu lived in Japan from 2005 undertaking 6 years of intensive shakuhachi study from the top masters of each Edo period honkyoku lineage. His teachers include:
• Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya (head of Chikushinkai) from whom he received his first Shihan (Master’s license), and the name ‘Senryu’ as both a professional player and maker in 2007.
• The Grandmaster of Kinko Ryu, Araki Kodo V, from whom he received his second Shihan, and the prestigious makers’ stamp ‘Kodo-sen’ (‘chosen by Kodo’) for his shakuhachi making.
• The Seien Ryu iemoto Iwata Seien VI, who authorised him to teach.
• The oldest Kyoto lineage of Shimpo Ryu; Kimpu Ryu and others from Otsubo Shido, who requested Justin to continue and propagate these precious lineages.
• Various rare lineages from other teachers.
Justin has performed, taught workshops and given lectures across Europe and Asia. He specialises in historic regional styles, having studied and researched in depth every extant Koten Honkyoku style. Justin also studied and practiced Buddhism for 17 years primarily in monasteries in India, Nepal and Thailand. He moved to Europe in 2011, and gives shakuhachi lessons and also Buddhist Psychotherapy in London, and teaches internationally via Skype.
Koichi Nazarov Yoshida
Schools/styles taught: Mujuan Shakuhachi dojo / kinko style, Jin Nyodo style
Teacher’s teacher: Yodo Kurahashi
Languages: Japanese, English, Russian
Teaching Locations: Moscow, Russia
Skype lessons: Yes (skype name:koichi21net)
Address/website: www.kosuian.com
Email: koichi21net@gmail.com
Biography: Koichi Nazarov Yoshida was born in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture、Japan. During student years he played blues and rock guitar, but also tried to play different musical instruments including ethnic ones. He was strongly impressed by shakuhachi sound and as a result he started to learn Kinko style shakuhachi under renowned Sensei Yodo Kurahashi, and is currently an active performer of traditional repertoire, as well as rock, jazz, folk music, and improvisation.
In 2009 he formed YUGAO, an ensemble project for shakuhachi, piano, cello, and tabla. He performs frequently in the museums and tea-houses of Kyoto. He also had YUGAO tour in Spain, France, London (2011), and original solo tour TAKEKAZE in France, Switzerland and Germany (2012), featuring with a calligrapher Ekaterina Nazarova, and being involved in a project “Sounds of Zen”.
“Sounds of Zen” (Tomokazu Takeda director) is a documentary movie about shakuhachi music, the attitude to Zen music and Zen culture in Japan and abroad. The movie is supposed to be on the screen in 2015. Due to this project, he had tour in October 2012 including Russia, Armenia, France, Germany and Switzerland. From January 2013 during 3 months Koichi Nazarov Yoshida lived and performed in France.
From May 2013 he lives and performs in Moscow, Russia.
TEACHERS BY COUNTRY
BELGIUM
CZECH REPUBLIC
Vlastislav Matoušek
Schools/styles taught: Contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Kifu Mitsuhashi
Languages: Czech
Teaching Locations: Prague, Czech Republic
Skype lessons:
Address/website: Vlastislav Matousek
Email: matousek@shakuhachi.cz
Biography:
Marek Kimei Matvija
Schools/styles taught: Kifu-kai, Myoan style
Teacher’s teacher: Kifu Mitsuhashi, Vlastislav Matoušek
Languages: Czech, English
Teaching Locations: Prague (at NEIRO Association for Expanding Arts)
Skype lessons: no
Address/website: www.matvija.cz
Email: marek@neiro.org
Biography:
Marek Kimei Matvija
*1985
Czech master player of the shakuhachi, Japanese bamboo flute. He is a performer of contemporary, improvised, and Japanese traditional ensemble and solo music. He has graduated at the Centre for Audiovisual Studies of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) and has studied under Czech pioneer of the shakuhachi and a composer, Vlastislav Matoušek. Since 2009, Marek continues his studies with Matoušek’s teacher Mitsuhashi Kifu. In 2017, he was awarded the title nattori shihan of the Kifu-kai and a performance name Kimei, 貴明.
Marek Matvija has performed throughout the Czech Republic and in Japan, Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, USA and Portugal. He is a member of the Topos Kolektiv, ensemble for site-specific improvised music, and the artistic director of the International Shakuhachi Festival Prague.
DENMARK
Kiku Day
Schools/styles taught: Zensabō, contemporary music, min’yō, improvisation and meditation and shakuhachi
Teacher’s teacher: Okuda Atsuya
Languages: Danish, English, French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Denmark
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: Kiku Day:
Email: kikuday@gmail.com
Biography:
Kiku Day (PhD, London; MFA, Mills; BA, London) is a jinashi shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist.
Dr Day trained shakuhachi playing with Okuda Atsuya for more than a decade in Japan and since her return to Europe has dedicated her life to the dissemination of the shakuhachi on that continent. She is a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society, which she currently serves as chairperson. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith and Joanna MacGregor and as a soloist with the Nonsuch Choir and with Odense Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu Tōru’s November Steps. Day is always exploring new possibilities with the shakuhachi in unconventional collaborations such as dance, narrative performance and film.
Her research has been mainly performance based and focused in particular on the potential use of the jinashi shakuhach in contemporary performance. Her teaching spans from the repertoire of Zensabō to shakuhachi and meditation and improvisation. Her aim is to help disseminate the knowledge and love for the shakuhachi. Her love of teaching shakuhachi has been noticed by many of her students.
Day is presently living at the meditation centre, Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede, Denmark.
Torsten Olafsson
Schools/styles taught: Myôan Taizan-ha
Teachers’ teacher: Ozawa Seizan
Languages: Danish, Swedish, English, German, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Elsinore/Helsingør, Denmark
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.torstenolafsson.dk
Email: myooan@gmail.com
Biography: Born in January 1950 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Torsten studied music from very early childhood and on: Piano, recorder, singing, bugle, drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar, vibraphone, tablas, percussion – then shakuhachi, a little koto, acoustic bass guitar and – as of lately: arabic darbuka.
First professional appearances as a pop/rock drummer in 1964-65.
1965-68: Specialized language & classical music studies in high school.
1968: Formed the symphonic rock band ACHE, who composed the world’s first genuine rock ballet, ‘De Homine Urbano’ in 1969, released on LP in 1970 (Philips) & re-released six times since then, internationally. Second ACHE album, ‘Green Man’, 1971, also reissued six times, worldwide.
1968: Began university studies in Chinese Language and Culture. BA degree in 1974.
1974: Began university studies in Japanese Language and Culture.
1977-78: Studies in Japan: Kyōto University foreign research student, and Myōan-ji, Taizan-ha shakuhachi, with Ozawa Seizan sensei, Yamashina, Kyōto.
1981: BA degree in Japanese/Japanology.
1983: Records the LP ‘Standing Waves – Zen Shakuhachi Meditations’ (Olafssongs OLP 001).
1986: Special research in the Tōkyō area. Shakuhachi studies with Yokoyama Katsuya in Chiba.
1987: MA thesis in Japanology submitted to the University of Copenhagen: ‘Early 17th Century Ascetic Shakuhachi Ideology. The Kaidō honsoku. A Komosō’s Fuke Shakuhachi Credo, dated 1628.’
1991-2000: Print Manager, then Serious Music Manager with Warner/Chappell Music Denmark A/S.
1997: On invitation by then International Shakuhachi Society president, the late Dan E. Mayers, Esq., Torsten writes an introductory essay to the ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis.
2001: ‘Standing Waves’ is re-released on CD by Fønix Musik, Denmark (Fønix Musik FM 1183).
2003: The ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis together with the introductory essay is printed and published internationally by Monty H. Levenson/Tai Hei Shakuhachi, Willits, California, USA.
2003: Website about Fuke Shakuhachi research is launched, now: www.torstenolafsson.dk.
2005: Introductory essay about the ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis is published by the ISS, in Annals vol. 2.
2008: The late Prof. Tsukitani Tsuneko concludes in her article in the book “The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music”: ‘The body of shakuhachi researchers in Japan is relatively small; names that recur in the bibliography include Kamisangō, Tsukitani/Tukitani, Seyama and Simura/Shimura. It is regrettable that the most conspicuous work is being produced not in Japan but by scholars abroad. (See the works by Fritsch, Gutzwiller, Keister, Lee, Olafsson.)’
Torsten Olafsson has contributed as a versatile studio musician to at least 40 Danish music albums; as a professional graphic artist created more than 60 music album cover designs; transcribed, music engraved, typeset and layouted well over 1.300 Danish pop, rock, jazz, folk & instrumental guitar music pieces and, since 1980, in his capacity as music editor and publishing company music editor and print manager, produced several hundred sheet music and music book titles.
Torsten is currently – beside his various shakuhachi activities – working closely with his younger brother, internationally renowned guitarist Finn Olafsson, OIafssongs Music Publishers DK, as a studio and concert musician, music editor, graphics designer, photographer, and webmaster.
ENGLAND
Clive Bell
Schools/styles taught: Just how to play the shakuhachi.
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miyata
Languages: English
Teaching Locations: London
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.clivebell.co.uk
Email: clive.bell@tesco.net
Biography: Clive Bell is a musician, composer and writer with a specialist interest in the shakuhachi, khene and other Far Eastern wind instruments. He has travelled extensively in Japan (where he studied the shakuhachi ¬ or Japanese flute¬ for two years with the master Kohachiro Miyata), Thailand, Laos and Bali, researching music and meeting local practitioners.
Clive is the shakuhachi player on Karl Jenkins’s album Requiem on EMI Classics, and the final two Harry Potter movies. His shakuhachi playing was featured in a live solo session on Radio 3’s Late Junction. A musician who regularly joins David Ross, Sylvia Hallett, Mike Adcock and Peter Cusack in various improvisation duos and trios, Clive Bell has a substantial recording history as both a solo artist (his solo album, Shakuhachi: The Japanese Flute was reissued in 2005 by ARC Records) and as a composer for film, TV and theatrical productions (Complicite, IOU, Whalley Range Allstars). Kazuko Hohki, Jah Wobble, David Sylvian, Steve Beresford, David Toop, Jochen Irmler of Faust, Paul Schütze and Bill Laswell number among Clive Bell’s collaborators.
Based in London, he writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire.
Michael Soumei Coxall
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryu honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Goro
Languages: English, Japanese.
Teaching locations: Oxford, England.
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: Soumei Shakuhachi
Email: chikusoumei@gmail.com
Biography: Michael Soumei Coxall studied shakuhachi under the legendary Yamaguchi Goro (1933–99) in Japan from 1979 to 1984 and continued his studies with him on frequent visits to Japan until 1999. Yamaguchi Goro was the head of the Chikumeisha branch of Kinko-ryu shakuhachi, one of the oldest existing shakuhachi lineages, and was the youngest ever performer to be designated as a ‘Living Cultural Treasure’ and played the most wonderful music. Since then, Michael has continued to study sankyoku (music to accompany koto and shamisen repertoires) and honkyoku (traditional solo pieces) under Mizuno Kohmei, one of Goro-sensei’s foremost students and presently head of Chikumeisha, and he received his Shihan (Master’s Licence) in 2007. Michael also studied shinkyoku (new music) under Sugawara Kuniyoshi in Japan
From 1986 to 2009, Michael taught full-time at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and took over teaching shakuhachi there from Iwamoto Yoshikazu from 1992 onwards. In 2006, he was one of the co-founders of the European Shakuhachi Society (ESS), a registered charity to promote an understanding and dissemination of shakuhachi and Japanese music throughout Europe, and has been organising and teaching many ESS Summer Schools and online workshops since then including the World Shakuhachi Festival in 2018.
Michael has performed widely in Japan and Europe with some of Japan’s finest koto, shamisen and shakuhachi players including performances at the National Theatre, Tokyo, and continues to teach shakuhachi honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku music in the UK. He is a member of the Hibiki Ensemble with Kitamura Keiko and is also head of the UK branch of Chikumeisha.
Robin Eve/Iburozan
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan Ryu
Teachers’ teacher: Nakamura Seizan
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Bristol, UK; Kobe, Japan
Skype lessons: No
Email: iburozan@gmail.com
Biography: Robin Eve, artistic name, Iburozan, trained as a horn player, then started playing shakuhachi in 1972. Since living full time in Japan from 1989, he has been active in traditional music playing, and also diversifying into western music, classical, jazz folk, etc.
Obtained teacher’s (shihan) licence in 1997, and ‘grand-master’(daishihan) licence in 2001.Won honkyoku contests in 1996, 1998, and 2003, at three different grades.
He performs regularly, sankyoku, etc, and teaches. He also arranges and composes music for shakuhachi, and other instruments. Particularly interested in ensemble music for shakuhachi groups, such as Nakao Tozan compositions.
In 2015 was invited to perform solo at the Moon Festival at World Heritage Site Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto. In 2016 he was an examiner for the practical exams of the Shin Tozan Ryu.
Adrian Freedman
Schools/styles taught: KSK/Chikushinkai
Teacher’s teacher: Katsuya Yokoyama, Clive Bell
Languages: English, Portuguese and a little French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Dartington, SW. England
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.adrianfreedman.com
Email: pureland33@gmail.com
Biography: Adrian was born in Leeds, N. England in 1962 and studied music at Manchester University (1983) and at The Guildhall School of Music (1986) and has always had a broad range of musical interests, from baroque music to contemporary classical, from jazz to folk.
He began studying the shakuhachi in London with Clive Bell and then moved to Japan in 1990 where he lived for eight years devoted to the study of koten honkyoku repertoire with Yokoyama Katsuya. At this time, he also had a government scholarship as a research fellow at Kyoto University.
After leaving Japan, he spent several years in the Brazilian Amazon immersed in the study and practice of ritual music. Adrian has worked as a composer and musical director for many theatre and dance companies and has taught music projects in over 100 schools and colleges. He has used the shakuhachi in collaboration with musicians from around the globe including the African kora, Arabian oud and the Brazilian berimbau. Currently, he is based in Dartington, SW. England.
Adrian’s approach to shakuhachi teaching rests upon a deep resonance with the principle of ichion jobutsu…the universe within a single tone. He tailors his teaching style to the needs of each individual student.
Richard Stagg
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-Ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Yoshikazu Iwamoto
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Wembley, UK
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: Tel: 0208-200 9593
Email: stagg516@btinternet.com
Biography: Richard Stagg has been a professional orchestral flute-player for the last thirty-five years, working in the Scottish National Orchestra and then in the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, from which he retired in 2008. He has been studying and playing shakuhachi for thirty years, and was a pupil of the late Yoshikazu Iwamoto. He now teaches shakuhachi and makes, repairs and tunes instruments. He performs publicly on the shakuhachi in the UK and in Japan. He has recorded a number of CDs as a member of the Yamato Ensemble, as well as a solo album and a disc of duets with Hidekazu Kato, under the ARC label.
Richard is happy to teach people of any age or level of attainment. After the ‘first note’ stage (however little or long it may take!) he starts his pupils off straightaway learning to read shakuhachi notation (Kinko or Tozan) and he believes in relating this directly to European notation pitch-equivalents at all stages of progress. He teaches the styles of honkyoku and sankyoku from the 17th Century up to and through the 20th. He can give advice on choosing an instrument, and can help in providing or obtaining instruments for beginners who are without them. He always tries to build his pupils’ confidence and to make it fun to learn the shakuhachi.
Justin Senryu Williams
Schools/styles taught: Honkyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha, Seien Ryu
(Fudaiji temple), Chikushinkai (a.k.a. Dokyoku), Kimpu Ryu (a.k.a. Nezasa Ha), Myoan Shimpo Ryu, Myoan Taizan Ryu, Oshu Kei, Echigo Myoan, Kyushu Kei
Sankyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha
Teacher’s teacher: Araki Kodo V, Yokoyama Katsuya, Furuya Teruo, Iwata Seien VI, Otsubo Shido, Fujiyoshi Etsuzan, Takahashi Rochiku, Sato Jokan, Kurahashi Yodo II, Michael Coxall, Kanda Kayu
Languages: English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: London, England
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.senryushakuhachi.com
Email: Please see www.senryushakuhachi.com
Biography: Justin Senryu lived in Japan from 2005 undertaking 6 years of intensive shakuhachi study from the top masters of each Edo period honkyoku lineage. His teachers include:
• Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya (head of Chikushinkai) from whom he received his first Shihan (Master’s license), and the name ‘Senryu’ as both a professional player and maker in 2007.
• The Grandmaster of Kinko Ryu, Araki Kodo V, from whom he received his second Shihan, and the prestigious makers’ stamp ‘Kodo-sen’ (‘chosen by Kodo’) for his shakuhachi making.
• The Seien Ryu iemoto Iwata Seien VI, who authorised him to teach.
• The oldest Kyoto lineage of Shimpo Ryu; Kimpu Ryu and others from Otsubo Shido, who requested Justin to continue and propagate these precious lineages.
• Various rare lineages from other teachers.
Justin has performed, taught workshops and given lectures across Europe and Asia. He specialises in historic regional styles, having studied and researched in depth every extant Koten Honkyoku style. Justin also studied and practiced Buddhism for 17 years primarily in monasteries in India, Nepal and Thailand. He moved to Europe in 2011, and gives shakuhachi lessons and also Buddhist Psychotherapy in London, and teaches internationally via Skype.
FRANCE
Christophe «Kazan» (歌山) Gaston
School: Shin Tozan Ryû (also trained in Kinko Ryû chikumeisha style)
Teacher: Sôzan Chiaki Kariya, Gunnar Jinmei Linder
Languages: French, English
Teaching Location: South Paris (Montlhéry)
Skype lessons: Yes
Email: christophe.gaston09@gmail.com
Biography: Christophe «Kazan» (歌山) Gaston is a shihan of the Shin-Tozan Ryû. He learnt shakuhachi under the guidance of Sôzan Chiaki Kariya, chair person of the french branch. He also studies the Kinko Ryû repertoire in the style of Yamaguchi Goro (Chikumeisha) with Gunnar Jinmei Linder. Besides his interest in all forms of honkyokus he regularly performs with the koto player Akari Sagara and with jazz and contemporary musicians. He is the contact person of the Chikumeisha french lesson center in France and the main organizer of the workshop series driven by Gunnar Linder in France.
Khagan Kugo SeiSon
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri Kai, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music and improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Daniel Liferman, Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Teruo Furuya
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: https://www.dojodelelephantblanc.fr/cours-ateliers/shakuhachi/
Email: dojodelelephantblanc@gmail.com
Biography: Khagan Kugo SeiSon pratique le shakuhachi depuis 2005 ans en suivant l’enseignement de Daniel Seisoku Liferman et maître Teruhisa Fukuda dans le cadre de l’école Hijiri Kai. Il a aussi étudié avec Teruo Furuya et Gunnar Linder.
Pratiquant le Zen depuis plus de 40 ans en tant que disciple de maître Taisen Deshimaru, et étant artiste de scène et metteur en scène, il aspire à réaliser par la pratique du shakuhachi, la fusion des dimensions spirituelles, méditatives et artistiques de la voie du Bouddha.
Dans son enseignement il transmet autant la pratique méditative de l’instrument que la pratique scénique (pièces traditionnelles et improvisations).
En juillet 2017 il reçoit le titre de Jiun-Shihan de maître Teruhisa Fukuda avec le nom de SeiSon (Incarnation de Sagesse).
En avril 2019 il a reçoit le titre de Shihan de maître Teruhisa Fukuda.
Sôzan C. Kariya
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Kariya Haruki
Languages: Japanese, French and English
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.shintozanryu-france.com
Email: sozanc.kariya@dbmail.com
Biography: Sôzan Chiaki Kariya est né 1950 à Hyogo, prés d’Osaka. Il commence à étudier le shakuhachi à l’âge de 13 ans avec son père, conseiller de Shin Tozan Ryû, élève de Ichizan Hoshida, 1er et fondateur de la branche Singensha de l’école Ikuta de koto. Il acquiert le titre de Grand Maitre (daishihan) de shakuhachi et nommé le représentant de l’école Shin Tozan Ryû en France.
Il a également appris le violoncelle au conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris avec Maurice Gendron et Jacqueline Heuclin. Il a reçu le 1er prix d’honneur au concours international de l’U.F.A.M. de Paris et 1er prix de concours Bellan au violoncelle en 1975 et nommé à membre du jury du concours U.F.A.M. en 1976. Il était un de membre sociétaire de l’orchestre symphonique de concert pasdeloup.
Sôzan Kariya a beaucoup d’activitès musicale en France, en Belgique, au Japon, en Allemagne et en Angleterre. Il a notamment eu un grand succès au festival Womad de Londres pour son shakuhachi solo. On a pu le voir sur TF1, sur france 3, concert de shakuhachi au Musée Guimet avec Mr Iwamoto et soliste pour l’orchestre symphonique de musique comtemporaine. Plusieurs CD sont sorti. Outre son activité de concertiste, Sôzan Kariya est professeur de shakuhachi et de violoncelle à l’école de musique SNCF de Paris et membre de la SACEM.
Suizan J.-F. Lagrost (ラグロ水山)
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū, KSK, Contemporary, Sankyoku and Shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Sōzan Kariya (Shin Tozan-Ryū), Véronique Piron (KSK)
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.flute-shakuhachi.com
Email: lagrost@flute-shakuhachi.com
Biography: Suizan J.-F. Lagrost is professor of art education at the Conservatories of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre and Asnières near Paris. As a versatile musician, he excels in both the Western and Japanese musics. After a traditional curriculum of concert flute in Mulhouse and Paris, then a DEA of Music of the 20th century at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he began the shakuhachi in 2000 (Tozan style) and obtained in 2014 the title of Dai-Shihan (grand master).
The diversity of his expertise conducts him to appear in a variety of backgrounds : the Ensemble de flûtes de Paris, flute & piano recitals in Taiwan, as a soloist with the Musique de la Garde républicaine, as well as Summer Schools and Festivals of shakuhachi in Europe (Barcelona, Prague, etc.)
He published in 2013 a Japanese chamber music CD entitled “Kyoku” with the koto player Mieko Miyazaki.
As a Senior Advisor of the European Shakuhachi Society, he has founded and administered since 2011 the world’s main forum of shakuhachi (www.shakuhachiforum.eu).
Daniel Lifermann
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri school, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Franck Noël
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.fr
Address: La Voie du Bambou, 19 rue de Conflans, F-94220 Charenton
Tel/Fax: 33 (0)1 43 53 25 60
Email: nardlife18@gmail.com
Biography: Daniel LIFERMANN started learning shakuhachi in 1983 during a trip to Japan. Back in France he studied with Franck NOËL (a YOKOYAMA’s student). From 1989 to 1997 he studied with Yoshikazu IWAMOTO. He also studied with Gunnar JINMEI LINDER.
Since 1999 he is a follower of Teruhisa FUKUDA (Kohachiro MIYATA’s student and founder of the Hijiri school /Sainte-École), with whom he regularly organizes intensive courses, he obtained the title of Dai Shihan and the name of “Sei Soku” (“breath of wisdom “) in 2008.
Since 1988, Daniel LIFERMANN teaches the shakuhachi, and in 1994 he founded the French association La Voie du Bambou, whose purpose is to spread wings and practice of shakuhachi. He works tirelessly to share what he received from the various masters he met and performs regularly in concert.
Daniel Lifermann s’est initié au shakuhachi en 1983 au Japon. Il a étudié avec Iwamoto Yoshikazu et Fukuda Teruhisa. En 1994, il fonde l’association française, ‘La Voie du Bambou’. Il enseigne depuis 1988 et rassemble autour de lui actuellement 25 étudiants. Il se produit régulièrement en France. Répertoires favoris: Honkyoku et pièces contemporaines. Particulièrement impliqué dans la transmission de la spiritualité dans la musique.
Véronique Piron
Schools/styles taught: KSK, traditional and modern styles
Teacher’s teacher: : Katsuya YOKOYAMA, Teruo FURUYA, Yoshikazu IWAMOTO
Languages: French, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: France (Paris and Bretagne), Belgium (Brussels)
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.veroniquepiron.com (français) / www.veroniquepiron.com/en (english)
Email: nipponflutes@gmail.com
Biography: Véronique Piron is a French flautist and a shakuhachi player. She received her shakuhachi Master’s Licence Shihan from Yokoyama Katsuya in 2002 while awarded a Lavoisier research grant from the French government for studying in Japan. She has participated in the creation of the ESS, being an officer until 2012, and the development of the shakuhachi in Europe. In Japan, she also learned nohkan and shinobue from Nishikawa Kohei of the Ensemble Pro-Nipponia, which lead her later to get a French State Diploma and a Professor’s licence, for teaching Japanese traditional music in the French conservatorium system. Based in West of France (Bretagne), she is produced by “Big Bravo Spectacles -production” in a Japanese music programme and in a creative music programme. She has recorded several shakuhachi CD’s.
Ôno Ranzan
Schools/styles taught: Fuke Shakuhachi (from different branches and temples),
Hitoyogiri flute, Shinobiryû Shakuhachi (Ninja’s Shakuhachi)
Teacher’s teacher: Fujiyoshi Etsuzan
Languages: French, English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.fuke-shakuhachi.com
Email: ranzan88@gmail.com
Biography: An expert in different martial arts he is practicing since his childhood, Ôno Ranzan is the first and only non-Japanese who has received the
title of Zen Grand Master of the Fuke-shû Shakuhachi (普化宗尺八看主). He raises awareness of the Shakuhachi of the orthodox school by performing recitals and lectures and is teaching his art in Japan and Europe.
Perfectly bilingual in Japanese, he is also carrying out researches on the history of the Fuke Shakuhachi, and has published a thesis about the Great Fuke Sect, its history, philosophy, and musical principals.
At the same time, he is making Jinashi Shakuhachi and Hitoyogiri flutes following old and traditional methods. Besides Shakuhachi, Ôno Ranzan is also a renown player of Hitoyogiri.
Emmanuelle Rouaud
Schools/styles taught: General introduction to shakuhachi & Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) repertoire
Teacher’s teacher: Teruo Furuya
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.emmanuelle-rouaud.com
Email: emmanuelle.rouaud@orange.fr
Biography: Emmanuelle Rouaud discovered the shakuhachi in 2006 and was fascinated by the possibilities of tone colour and sounds and began exploring the instrument.
Since 2013 Emmanuelle is studying the honkyoku and modern repertoire with Teruo Furuya, the director of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) in Japan and recently received her teaching license (shihan) from Teruo Furuya.
Emmanuelle is also interested in traditional sankyoku ensemble playing and has received tuition from players like Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel and Keisuke Zenyoji among others.
Her interest in developing new repertoire for shakuhachi led her to a collaboration with French composer Henri Algadafe and premiering I thought About Eva for shakuhachi and koto at the World Shakuhachi Festival in London in 2018. Currently they are working on a new composition for electric guitar, electronics and 2.4 shakuhachi.
Emmanuelle performs shakuhachi music regularly, most recently with koto players Naoko Kikuchi and Gaho Takahashi, she also was one of the finalists of the honkyoku competition at the KSK’s 30th anniversary event in 2019 in Bisei, Japan.
Emmanuelle Rouaud lives and works near Paris, France. There she co-organises the annual Teruo Furuya/Mizuka Onishi workshop in Paris, developing shakuhachi classes in CRC Montigny-le-Bretonneux as well as teaches the silver flute (CRR Versailles Grand Parc) and offers shakuhachi teaching through her collaboration with jiari shakuhachi maker Thorsten Knaub at shakuhachi-atelier.
GERMANY
Thilo Burdach
Schools/styles taught: Kyotaku Meioan style
Teachers’ teacher: Koku Nishimura
Languages: German, English, Spanish, Italian
Teaching Locations: Berlin
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.tilopa.de
Email: tiloburdach@web.de
Biography: Born 1949, teaching T’ai Chi/Chi Gong since 1982, has studied Kyotaku with Koku Sensei since 1986,
making and teaching Kyotaku since the 1990’s, published several CDs under the name ’tilopa’,
now living with his wife in Berlin.
Jim Franklin
Schools/styles taught: KSK, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Dr Riley Lee, Furuya Teruo, Yokoyama Katsuya
Languages: English and German
Teaching Locations: Japan, worldwide (lessons via internet)
Skype/FaceTime/Zoom lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.bambooheart.com
1-23-13 Ichiriyama
Ōtsu-shi, Shiga-ken 520-2153
Japan
Tel. +81 77 599 0522
Email: dr_jim_franklin@t-online.de
Biography: Dr Jim Franklin is a master performer of the shakuhachi in the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan. He initially studied composition and musicology in Australia, Germany and Holland and during his studies, he encountered the shakuhachi, and was fascinated by it. After learning the instrument in Australia with Dr Riley Lee and in Japan with Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya, he received the title Shihan (Master) in 1996 from Yokoyama Katsuya.
In the area of solo shakuhachi, Franklin has specialized in the honkyoku lineage of Yokoyama Katsuya and in modern music. His concert activities extend throughout Europe as well as in Japan, where he currently lives. He has released two CDs of shakuhachi honkyoku (‘Hearing Stillness’ and ‘Zen Garden Meditations’) and a further CD of his own shakuhachi solo pieces (Butsuga), as well as several CDs of compositions and improvisations with other musicians (‘Water Spirits’, ‘Moon Road to Dawn’, ‘Abundance’, ‘Aurora’, ‘Nine-Elemental Songs’, ‘Journey of Simurgh’, ‘Trees, Stones, Water, Sand’), on the Celestial Harmonies label and with other labels.
As a composer, Franklin is active in the areas of contemporary and electroacoustic music. He composes for shakuhachi solo and in combination with other instruments, and frequently performs projects with shakuhachi and live electronics, sometimes in combination with dance and video art. The interface between shakuhachi and electronics, and shakuhachi and visual media, is a key area of interest. His works, ‘Three Treasures: Columns and Webs’ (realized in 1996 as Composer-in-Residence at the Centre for Computer Music, Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo) and his CD ‘Songs from the Lake’ (NEOS 12029, released 2021) are representative of this musical direction.
From 2004 to 2021 Franklin lived in Germany. As a teacher, he gave individual lessons in a number of cities, including Mainz, Stuttgart, Hannover, Bergisch Gladbach (near Cologne), Heidelberg, Bamberg and Nuremberg. He offered regular workshops for beginners as well as advanced students. In 2021 he and his wife, shakuhachi player and visual artist Hiroko Sugino, emigrated to Japan; they now live in Seta, near Kyoto. As well as teaching (face-to-face and online) and performing, he now focuses on composing for shakuhachi.
Prior to emigrating to Germany in 2004, Franklin was Senior Lecturer in Music Technology in the Music Department of University of Western Sydney, including a period as Head of Department (1997-98). His connection to the academic world has been maintained through occasional publications such as the articles “Japanese Shakuhachi Honkyoku Tradition and its Reinterpretation into a Contemporary Composition Practice” (in ‘Music of the Spirit: Asian-Pacific Identity’, Australian Music Centre, 2008) and “Compositional Encounters with Shakuhachi” (in ‘The Annual of Texts by Foreign Guest Professors’, Charles University, Prague, 2008).
Franklin was instrumental in the founding of the European Shakuhachi Society, and was its foundation chairperson, from 2006 to 2009. He has taught and performed at many of the European Shakuhachi Summer Schools, including 2006, 2007 (organised together with Véronique Piron), 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 (organised by him in Radolfzell, Germany), 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. For many years he was also a regular performer and teacher at the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festivals.
Franklin was one of the principal organisers of the World Shakuhachi Festival in London, 2018, being responsible for programme and budget, as well as performing and teaching at the event. He has also been active at most other WSFs: teaching and performing in Boulder 1998, New York 2002, and Sydney 2008 (at which he also assumed the role of programme coordinator). He performed at Kyoto 2012.
Markus Guhe
Schools/styles taught: Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan (KSK)
Teacher: Kaoru Kakizakai, Clive Bell
Languages: German, English
Teaching Locations: Papenburg, Germany; Edinburgh, UK
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: markusguhe.net
Email: markusguhe@icloud.com
Biography: Dr. Markus Guhe has been performing with the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers since 2011, doing multiple tours per year and countless performances abroad. He discovered the shakuhachi on a taiko research trip to Japan in 2012, and now the the shakuhachi is his main instrument.
In 2016 he received a shihan (master’s license) from his teacher Kaoru Kakizakai, authorising him to teach and continue the lineage of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) established by Katsuya Yokoyama.
In 2017 he won the prestigious KSK scholarship to study with his teacher in Japan.
In 2018 he released his first CD (Samazama) featuring a mix of traditional shakuhachi solo pieces and modern, self-composed music.
In 2021 he started regularly posting videos on YouTube on playing shakuhachi.
Nina Haarer
Schools/styles taught: KSK, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher: Dr Jim Franklin, Furuya Teruo
Languages: German, English, French, Japanese
Teaching Location: Germany
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: www.facebook.com/Nina-H
Address: Alte Esslinger Str. 10, 71394 Kernen i. R., Germany
Telephone: +49 178 6020272
Email: nina.haarer@web.de
Biography: Nina Haarer is a German Shakuhachi player and teacher. Initially trained as a singer and piano player, Nina discovered the shakuhachi when she was still a teenager, along with the Japanese language.
In 2004 she started lessons with Jim Franklin in the styles of Chikuhō and Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK). In 2018 she was awarded the KSK Europe Scholarship and studied with Furuya Teruo in Tokyo. She was awarded a shihan menjō in 2019.
Besides the traditional repertoire Nina combines the shakuhachi with different forms of art and genres, like modern dance or theater. Regular projects have been: DieTanzKompanie by Grégory Darcy and Theater Hebebühne. Her concern to bring the shakuhachi to the younger generation / a new audience found way in two punk/gothic rock bands: The Nerves (2010–2021) and Totentanz Strumpfsockig.
She is also including the shakuhachi in her job as a music therapist. Nina is the current secretary of the European Shakuhachi Society.
IRELAND
Philip Horan
Schools/styles taught:
Teacher’s teacher:
Languages:
Teaching Locations:
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.shakuhachizen.com
Email: phil@shakuhachizen.com
Biography: Philip Horan spent two years in Japan, studying the repertoire of the Tozan-ryu in Hiroshima. He studied shakuhachi with Sunny Yeung (Hong Kong), Hanaoka Seizan (Hiroshima), Kiku Day and Jean-François Lagrost.
He completed a Masters in Ethnomusicology at the Irish World Music Centre in Limerick, focusing on shakuhachi acoustics and aesthetics. He regularly performs Irish and Celtic musics on shakuhachi.
ITALY
Fiore De Mattia (Sei-Chiku)
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Honkyoku
Teachers’ teacher: Daniel Lifermann, Teruhisa Fukuda
Languages: Italian
Teaching Locations: Alzano Lombardo (BG), Borgone (TO), Italy
Skype lessons: No
Address/website:
Fiore De Mattia, Via Marconi 12, 24022 Alzano Lombardo (BG), Italy
tel. 035511259
cell. 346 8122492
Email: fiore@flautoshakuhachi.it
Biography: Fiore De Mattia, Italy (1960)
– I am a member of the French society “La Voie Du Bambou”, whose purpose is to teach and disseminate Shakuhachi.
– In 2003, I began learning Shakuhachi with Master Daniel LIFERMANN and as of 2006, I continued studying under the guidance of Master Teruhisa FUKUDA, from the Kinko school “Hijiri”/ “Sainte École”.
– Since 2012, I hold concerts in Italy and France : “The Sound of Zen Buddhism”.
– In 2013, I achieved the title of Shihan, granted by Master Tehurisha FUKUDA
NETHERLANDS
Hélène Seiyu Codjo
Schools/styles taught: Fukuda’s school Hijiri-kai (or “Sainte-école”): honkyoku and modern pieces
Teacher’s teacher: Fukuda Teruhisa and Daniel Seisoku Lifermann
Languages: French, English & Dutch.
Teaching Locations: The Netherlands (Nijmegen, Eindhoven & Rotterdam).
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: http://www.fluitshakuhachi.nl
Email: helene@fluitshakuhachi.nl
Biography: Hélène Seiyu Codjo started to learn shakuhachi with Daniel Seisoku Lifermann in Paris in the French association La Voie du Bambou. She also followed masterclasses with Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Jim Franklin, Shimura Zempo, Yodo Kurahashi II and Koichi Yoshida.
Since 2006, she regularly attends the masterclasses of Fukuda Teruhisa, founder of the ensemble and school Hijiri-Kai. In January 2013, she received the jun shihan license with the name Seiyu (Wisdom of kindness) from him. In November 2015, Fukuda Teruhisa awarded her with the shihan license (master).
She lives in the Netherlands, where she gives lessons, workshops and concerts.
Furthermore, she writes shows where she plays other world flutes (quena, dizi, African flutes,…) in addition to the shakuhachi and the western flutes. She also works with storytellers and has recorded a dozen CDs for children with her different flutes.
Hans van Loon
Schools/styles taught: Kyotaku-tradition
Languages: Dutch
Teaching Locations: The Netherlands
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.kyotaku.nl
Drielindekensdijk 1
4651 PH Steenbergen
The Netherlands
Email: hans@kyotaku.nl
Biography: Hans van Loon teaches kyotaku at his home for students from the Netherlands and Belgium. Although kyotaku has several meanings, Hans focusses on the kind of shakuhachi Koku Nishimura taught and built which is a jinashi shakuhachi with a big bore and a long length. The music played with the Kyotaku is simple and is played with a meditative attitude; the mindset while playing is more important than the result.
PORTUGAL
Rodrigo Rodriguez
Schools/styles taught: Mu Ryu, Kinko Ryu, Dokyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miya, Kakizakai Kaoru
Languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Catalan.
Teaching Locations: Spain, Portugal
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Email: info@rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Biography: Rodrigo Rodriguez is a shakuhachi player internationally known specialist in the Japanese flute, has performed in numerous concert halls in Asia, Europe, South Pacific and Latin America.
Among his important tours he performed in the “Tokyo Imperial Hotel” events NHK, in the temple of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, or Tchaivkosky Conservatory, Moscow Russia.
He has lived and studied in Japan with the renowned master of Japan’s leading players of shakuhachi Miyata Kohachiro, and Kakizakai Kaoru.
RUSSIA
Koichi Nazarov Yoshida
Schools/styles taught: Mujuan Shakuhachi dojo / kinko style, Jin Nyodo style
Teacher’s teacher: Yodo Kurahashi
Languages: Japanese, English, Russian
Teaching Locations: Moscow, Russia
Skype lessons: Yes (skype name:koichi21net)
Address/website: www.kosuian.com
Email: koichi21net@gmail.com
Biography: Koichi Nazarov Yoshida was born in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture、Japan. During student years he played blues and rock guitar, but also tried to play different musical instruments including ethnic ones. He was strongly impressed by shakuhachi sound and as a result he started to learn Kinko style shakuhachi under renowned Sensei Yodo Kurahashi, and is currently an active performer of traditional repertoire, as well as rock, jazz, folk music, and improvisation.
In 2009 he formed YUGAO, an ensemble project for shakuhachi, piano, cello, and tabla. He performs frequently in the museums and tea-houses of Kyoto. He also had YUGAO tour in Spain, France, London (2011), and original solo tour TAKEKAZE in France, Switzerland and Germany (2012), featuring with a calligrapher Ekaterina Nazarova, and being involved in a project “Sounds of Zen”.
“Sounds of Zen” (Tomokazu Takeda director) is a documentary movie about shakuhachi music, the attitude to Zen music and Zen culture in Japan and abroad. The movie is supposed to be on the screen in 2015. Due to this project, he had tour in October 2012 including Russia, Armenia, France, Germany and Switzerland. From January 2013 during 3 months Koichi Nazarov Yoshida lived and performed in France.
From May 2013 he lives and performs in Moscow, Russia.
SCOTLAND
Markus Guhe
Schools/styles taught: Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan (KSK)
Teacher: Kaoru Kakizakai, Clive Bell
Languages: English, German
Teaching Locations: Edinburgh, UK; Papenburg, Germany
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: markusguhe.net
Email: markusguhe@icloud.com
Biography: Dr. Markus Guhe has been performing with the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers since 2011, doing multiple tours per year and countless performances abroad. He discovered the shakuhachi on a taiko research trip to Japan in 2012, and now the the shakuhachi is his main instrument.
In 2016 he received a shihan (master’s license) from his teacher Kaoru Kakizakai, authorising him to teach and continue the lineage of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) established by Katsuya Yokoyama.
In 2017 he won the prestigious KSK scholarship to study with his teacher in Japan.
In 2018 he released his first CD (Samazama) featuring a mix of traditional shakuhachi solo pieces and modern, self-composed music.
SPAIN
Horacio Curti
Schools/styles taught: Koten Honkyoku Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan style, Improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei
Languages: Spanish, English, Catalán and some Portuguese
Teaching Locations: Barcelona and other places in Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.es, shakuhachies.wordpress.com/
Email: horacio.curti@gmail.com
Biography: Horacio Curti encountered the Shakuhachi for the first time on the Indian Himalayas. Fascinated by its sound, decided to go to Japan where he started his studies under Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei focusing on the Koten Honkyoku music. There he received his Shakuhachi Shihan (Shakuhachi master degree) from Yokoyama Katsuya Sensei in 2004.
Besides his work with the Koten Honkyoku, he started researching on contemporary forms such as “free improvised music” collaborating both with musicians and dancers, poetry and theatre, and especially “western classical contemporary music” both solo and as part of the Mei trio, premiering several compositions.
He has performed and taught in Argentina, Chile, Belgium, Holland, UK, France, Japan, Spain and USA.
He completed his studies in Ethnomusicology in 2005, specializing in Japanese music practices. At present he is teacher at the “Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya” and “SAE Barcelona”.
After several free improvised music recordings, in 2009 was published his first solo album, ichi, by Agharta Music. In 2012 Viena Edicions released the Book-CD “Contes Zen. Petites històries per despertar” a compilation of Zen stories by Marta Millà accompanied by a disc with a narration of some of the stories with music by Horacio Curti. More information in www.shakuhachi.es
Antonio Enzan Olías - アントニオ · 炎山 · オリアス
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu Chikumeisha, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan,
Tozan, Fukeshu Shakuhachi, Gendai Hogaku “Japanese Contemporary Music”.
Teachers’ teacher: Tanaka Komei, Teruhisa Fukuda, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi,
Kuniyoshi Sugawara, Tanabe Shozan, Katoh Hidekazu, Anne Norman
Languages: Spanish, English
Teaching Locations: Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: –
Email: antonio.enzan@gmail.com
Biography: Antonio Enzan took up the shakuhachi in 2001 whilst he was living in Melbourne Australia and he started lessons with Anne Norman. In 2005 he was awarded with the Gen Foundation Grant and the AIE Grant to further his shakuhachi studies in Japan.
He received instruction under the direction of the best shakuhachi masters. In classic styles he studied with Tanaka Komei, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi. Modern and Contemporary music with Teruhisa Fukuda, Kuniyoshi Sugawara and Tanabe Shôzan.
In 2011 Etsuzan Fujiyoshi sensei awarded him with the professional name Saiho Enzan ·西方炎山· that means Fire Mountain from the West. In 2014 Teruhisa Fukuda awarded him with the Shakuhachi Dai Shihan “Grand Shakuhachi Master” license.
He has performed in Japan, Egypt, India, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Belgium and widely in Spain. He recorded his first album “Encuentros” in 2007 in Japan. He has collaborated with the especialist in Medieval Music Eduardo Paniagua recording the album “Cantigas de Nuestro Señor” performing Medieval Music Composed by Alphonse X The Wise. He has recently collaborated in the album of Erwin Grafe “Canciones Incrustables”.
Rodrigo Rodriguez
Schools/styles taught: Mu Ryu, Kinko Ryu, Dokyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miyata, Kakizakai Kaoru
Languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Catalan.
Teaching Locations: Spain, Portugal
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Email: info@rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Biography: Rodrigo Rodriguez is a shakuhachi player internationally known specialist in the Japanese flute, has performed in numerous concert halls in Asia, Europe, South Pacific and Latin America.
Among his important tours he performed in the “Tokyo Imperial Hotel” events NHK, in the temple of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, or Tchaivkosky Conservatory, Moscow Russia.
He has lived and studied in Japan with the renowned master of Japan’s leading players of shakuhachi Miyata Kohachiro, and Kakizakai Kaoru.
SWEDEN
Gunnar Jinmei Linder
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Gorō
Languages: Swedish, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Sweden and Scandinavia
Skype lessons: gunnar_linder_in_tokyo
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.biz
Kallangsvagen 7, 2 tr, S-181 43 Lidingo
Telephone: +46 (0)8 731 04 61
Mobile: +46 (0)708 32 33 14
Email: shakuhachi.biz@mac.com
Biography: Gunnar Linder started to learn shakuhachi after arriving in Japan in 1985. He studied with Yamaguchi Gorō (Kinko-ryū, Chikumeisha) from 1985 from whom he received his shakuhachi Shihan (Chikumeisha Kinko-ryu Master’s Licence) and continued his studies in Japan until 2005. He is on the Council of Chikumeisha (chikumeisha hyōgi-in). Gunnar now lives and teaches in Stockholm, Sweden
* Head of Chikumeisha European Branch; keiko-ba in Stockholm.
* Head of Chikumeisha. Tachikawa Branch.
* Member of Kinko-ryū Kyōkai, Nihon Sankyoku Kyōkai, Komusō Kenkyūkai.
* Ph.D. in Japanology: Stockholm University.
* M.A. in Shakuhachi as Performing Art: Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku.
* B.A. in Japanology and Philosophy. Main genres: kinko-ryū honkyoku, sankyoku (jiuta-sōkyoku), improvisation.
SWITZERLAND
Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Schools/styles taught: Kinko, Taizan, Nezasa Ha,
Teacher’s teacher:
Languages: Swiss, German, French, English
Teaching Locations: Basel, Bern, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Email: ueli.derendinger@bluewin.ch
Biography:
Wolfgang Fuyûgen Heßler
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu, Itchoken Ryu
Teacher’s teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller, Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Zürich, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.komuso.ch
Email: w.hessler@komuso.ch
Biography: Wolfgang Hessler belongs to a modern generation of musicians, who’s education and work is based not only on the music of one culture.
Grown up in Munich he studied doublebass with Herbert Duft and graduated from the Munich College of Music. Following he worked at the Orchestra of the State-Opera (National Theatre Munich), the Munich Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony-Orchestra, partly still during his studies.
In Switzerland Wolfgang Hessler studied the Japanese bamboo-flute shakuhachi in the tradition of the Kinko-School with Dr. Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller at the Studio for extraeuropean Music of the Academie of Music Basel. Several journeys to and study visits in Japan took him to Kawase Junsuke III, head of the Zenkoku Chikuyusha in Tokyo, who performed the Shihan-Menyô-Ceremony for him to confirm the reception of the tradition. In addition, Wolfgang Hessler studied with Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada in the tradition of the temple Itchôken (Hakata/Kyûshu). Wolfgang Hessler lives and teaches in Zurich, performing in concerts and recitals traditional Japanese music (honkyoku and gaikyoku) and modern music as well as with improvisation ensembles.
Influenced by Sergiu Celibidache, affected by the practice of playing the shakuhachi as an exercise in concentration and respiration of the Fuke-monks in Japan, he dedicates his activity to the spiritual dimension of making music. Leaving behind any concept and construct, any will and intention, making music happens as activity in alertness and concentration, guided by one’s proper breath and the almost unexhaustable tone colour of the shakuhachi.
IT plays. This is not extraneous to western music, but hardly anyone knows about that nowadays.
Isabel Lerchmüller
Schools/styles taught: Myoan Taizan Ha, Improvisation, traditional and contemporary
Teacher’s teacher: Ueli Furûyu Derendinger
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Bern, Switzerland
Skype lessons: only if there is no other possibility
Address/website: isabellerchmueller.ch
Email: isa.lerch@gmx.ch
Biography: Isabel Lerchmüller lives in Bern (Switzerland) and works as a freelance musician and teacher for flute and shakuhachi.
After receiving her teaching diploma for flute in 2005, she specialized in free improvisation. 2009 Isabel began studying shakuhachi with Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger and continued to deepen her knowledge of Japanese culture. She enjoyed several extended stays in Japan and further shakuhachi studies with Kawase Junsuke sensei III and Kawase Yousuke sensei in Tokyo.
Isabel performs as a solo artist and chamber musician. She is flutist in the OPUS Bern Orchestra and is regularly invited to perform in cross-disciplinary productions.
Isabel teaches private lessons and group workshops. She loves to play not only the regular flute and the 1.8 shakuhachi, but also alto flute, bass flute and various shakuhachi up to 2.7. Sharing musical moments means a lot to her – in concerts as well as in teaching.
Ursula Fuyûmi Schmidiger-Jasch
Schools/styles taught: Kinko
Teacher’s teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Switzerland, Ober-Kuonimattweg 50, 6010 Kriens/Luzern
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.chikuyusha.ch
Email: u.yashu@hotmail.com
Biography: Since 1988 Ursula Fuyûmi Schmidiger has stuidied the art of traditional Japanese archery and heads the Kyudo group Shoken, Kriens/Luzern. Within the framework of a Kyudo seminar she experienced shakuhachi music for the first time live and was fascinated by the sound of this instrument. In the summer of 1998, she began studying the shakuhachi at the Studio of non-European music at the Music Academy in the city of Basel with Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller, master in the tradition of the Kinko school. In September 2010 she received the teaching diploma (shihan menjô) Zenkoku Chikuyûsha and was granted the master name Fuyûmi in Tokyo by Kawase Junsuke lll.
UKRAINE
Sergey Maksymenko
Schools/styles taught: Zensabo style, Honkyoku
Teacher’s teacher Kiku Day
Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English
Teaching Locations: Kiev, Ukraine
Skype lessons: sernamaksy
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.com.ua
https://www.facebook.com/bamboolaboratory
Email: hachigaeshi@gmail.com
Biography: The first time I heard the shakuhachi in 2000, on a CD. This was the beginning, Honshirabe by Kohachiro Miyata. Later, an incredible sound of Tamuke, by Riley Lee prompted me to start the search an instrument. I’m interested in what makes a tool for these beautiful and sad sounds.
The first steps in studying of shakuhachi I started to make by myself, as in Ukraine, no teachers. I was helped by friends such as enthusiastic as I am. Then I started taking lessons from the masters in Skype. I took a few lessons from Kaoru Kakizakai, Michael Chikuzen Gould. I met with Kiku Day in 2008 in Kiev, and in 2010 after the European Shakuhachi Festival in Prague became her student. In 2012 I took part in WSF in Kyoto. In Tokyo I studied with Okuda Atsuya. Now I continue to learn Zensabo repertoire under Kiku’s leadership, and teach beginners in Kiev and Ukraine.
I have a project “MA”. This is improvised music of shakuhachi, singing bowls, tanpura. In 2013 our album “Guide” was released.
UnRyū
Schools/styles taught: Myōan
Teacher’s teacher: Ejun Lechika
Languages: Russian
Teaching Locations: Kiev, Ukraine
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.kiev.ua
Email: vladimirlazutkin.wind@yandex.ua
Biography: I practice playing the shakuhachi in the style of Myōan. My teacher is Ejun Lechika. Ejun Lechika Rinzai Zen monk is a certified teacher of the Meian (Myoan). When he was teaching me to play shakuhachi, he told me that a real komusō must create his own flute with his own hands. And the time came where I began to make shakuhachi listening to his advice.
I have performed with my flutes on the Religious festivals in the Conservatoire. I play honkyoku, I say a prayer so that my flute can open its heart to a person listening to it or practising it.
My buddhist name is Un Ryuu (雲龍). This name was given to me by my teacher when he was giving me rakusu.
Also, I have permission from my teacher to teach. I live in the city of Kiev in Ukraine.
TEACHERS BY SCHOOL/STYLE & GENRE
This section is meant as a basic guide to the various schools, styles and genres covered by the teachers featured on the ESS website.
Please check with the individual teachers for the exact schools and repertoire they may teach.
CHIKUHO-RYU
Jim Franklin
Schools/styles taught: KSK, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Dr Riley Lee, Furuya Teruo, Yokoyama Katsuya
Languages: English and German
Teaching Locations: Japan, worldwide (lessons via internet)
Skype/FaceTime/Zoom lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.bambooheart.com
1-23-13 Ichiriyama
Ōtsu-shi, Shiga-ken 520-2153
Japan
Tel. +81 77 599 0522
Email: dr_jim_franklin@t-online.de
Biography: Dr Jim Franklin is a master performer of the shakuhachi in the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan. He initially studied composition and musicology in Australia, Germany and Holland and during his studies, he encountered the shakuhachi, and was fascinated by it. After learning the instrument in Australia with Dr Riley Lee and in Japan with Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya, he received the title Shihan (Master) in 1996 from Yokoyama Katsuya.
In the area of solo shakuhachi, Franklin has specialized in the honkyoku lineage of Yokoyama Katsuya and in modern music. His concert activities extend throughout Europe as well as in Japan, where he currently lives. He has released two CDs of shakuhachi honkyoku (‘Hearing Stillness’ and ‘Zen Garden Meditations’) and a further CD of his own shakuhachi solo pieces (Butsuga), as well as several CDs of compositions and improvisations with other musicians (‘Water Spirits’, ‘Moon Road to Dawn’, ‘Abundance’, ‘Aurora’, ‘Nine-Elemental Songs’, ‘Journey of Simurgh’, ‘Trees, Stones, Water, Sand’), on the Celestial Harmonies label and with other labels.
As a composer, Franklin is active in the areas of contemporary and electroacoustic music. He composes for shakuhachi solo and in combination with other instruments, and frequently performs projects with shakuhachi and live electronics, sometimes in combination with dance and video art. The interface between shakuhachi and electronics, and shakuhachi and visual media, is a key area of interest. His works, ‘Three Treasures: Columns and Webs’ (realized in 1996 as Composer-in-Residence at the Centre for Computer Music, Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo) and his CD ‘Songs from the Lake’ (NEOS 12029, released 2021) are representative of this musical direction.
From 2004 to 2021 Franklin lived in Germany. As a teacher, he gave individual lessons in a number of cities, including Mainz, Stuttgart, Hannover, Bergisch Gladbach (near Cologne), Heidelberg, Bamberg and Nuremberg. He offered regular workshops for beginners as well as advanced students. In 2021 he and his wife, shakuhachi player and visual artist Hiroko Sugino, emigrated to Japan; they now live in Seta, near Kyoto. As well as teaching (face-to-face and online) and performing, he now focuses on composing for shakuhachi.
Prior to emigrating to Germany in 2004, Franklin was Senior Lecturer in Music Technology in the Music Department of University of Western Sydney, including a period as Head of Department (1997-98). His connection to the academic world has been maintained through occasional publications such as the articles “Japanese Shakuhachi Honkyoku Tradition and its Reinterpretation into a Contemporary Composition Practice” (in ‘Music of the Spirit: Asian-Pacific Identity’, Australian Music Centre, 2008) and “Compositional Encounters with Shakuhachi” (in ‘The Annual of Texts by Foreign Guest Professors’, Charles University, Prague, 2008).
Franklin was instrumental in the founding of the European Shakuhachi Society, and was its foundation chairperson, from 2006 to 2009. He has taught and performed at many of the European Shakuhachi Summer Schools, including 2006, 2007 (organised together with Véronique Piron), 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 (organised by him in Radolfzell, Germany), 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. For many years he was also a regular performer and teacher at the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festivals.
Franklin was one of the principal organisers of the World Shakuhachi Festival in London, 2018, being responsible for programme and budget, as well as performing and teaching at the event. He has also been active at most other WSFs: teaching and performing in Boulder 1998, New York 2002, and Sydney 2008 (at which he also assumed the role of programme coordinator). He performed at Kyoto 2012.
Nina Haarer
Schools/styles taught: KSK, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher: Dr Jim Franklin, Furuya Teruo
Languages: German, English, French, Japanese
Teaching Location: Germany
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: www.facebook.com/Nina-H
Address: Alte Esslinger Str. 10, 71394 Kernen i. R., Germany
Telephone: +49 178 6020272
Email: nina.haarer@web.de
Biography: Nina Haarer is a German Shakuhachi player and teacher. Initially trained as a singer and piano player, Nina discovered the shakuhachi when she was still a teenager, along with the Japanese language.
In 2004 she started lessons with Jim Franklin in the styles of Chikuhō and Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK). In 2018 she was awarded the KSK Europe Scholarship and studied with Furuya Teruo in Tokyo. She was awarded a shihan menjō in 2019.
Besides the traditional repertoire Nina combines the shakuhachi with different forms of art and genres, like modern dance or theater. Regular projects have been: DieTanzKompanie by Grégory Darcy and Theater Hebebühne. Her concern to bring the shakuhachi to the younger generation / a new audience found way in two punk/gothic rock bands: The Nerves (2010–2021) and Totentanz Strumpfsockig.
She is also including the shakuhachi in her job as a music therapist. Nina is the current secretary of the European Shakuhachi Society.
CONTEMPORARY MUSIC
Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
Schools/styles taught: Kinko (honkyoku, sankyoku),
Myôan, contemporary, improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: YAMAGUCHI Goro, OKAMOTO Chikugai, FUJII Kunie
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Tokyo, world wide
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.yohmei.com
Email: yohmei@gol.com
Biography: Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began the shakuhachi and studies of Japanese music in 1972 with Living National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi. He also studied Fuke shakuhachi under Okamoto Chikugai, jiuta ensemble playing with Fujii Kunie and ryûteki flute under Shiba Sukeyasu. In 1982 he received an MFA in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and is one of only two non-Japanese to be accredited as a shihan master by Yamaguchi. Performing in Japan and around the world, Blasdel maintains a balance between traditional shakuhachi music, modern compositions and cross-genre work with musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists.
Discography includes Navarasa (2009), Breath Play (2007), Visionary Tones (2005) and several other CDs of traditional and contemporary music. He has composed and performed music for NHK documentaries and various films. He co-organized the World Shakuhachi Festival ’98 held in Boulder, Colorado and the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival in 2008. He is the senior advisor to the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festival. His semi-autobiographical book, The Single Tone—A Personal Journey through Shakuhachi Music (Printed Matter Press, 2005) and The Shakuhachi, A Manual for Learning (1988) are two of the most important English language resource books on the shakuhachi.
He presently teaches Japanese music at Temple University in Tokyo and is coordinator/mentor for the Columbia University Hôgaku Program. He holds a third-degree black belt in Aikido.
Kiku Day
Schools/styles taught: Zensabō, contemporary music, min’yō, improvisation and meditation and shakuhachi
Teacher’s teacher: Okuda Atsuya
Languages: Danish, English, French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Denmark
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.kikuday.com
Email: kikuday@gmail.com
Biography:
Kiku Day (PhD, London; MFA, Mills; BA, London) is a jinashi shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist.
Dr Day trained shakuhachi playing with Okuda Atsuya for more than a decade in Japan and since her return to Europe has dedicated her life to the dissemination of the shakuhachi on that continent. She is a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society, which she currently serves as chairperson. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith and Joanna MacGregor and as a soloist with the Nonsuch Choir and with Odense Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu Tōru’s November Steps. Day is always exploring new possibilities with the shakuhachi in unconventional collaborations such as dance, narrative performance and film.
Her research has been mainly performance based and focused in particular on the potential use of the jinashi shakuhach in contemporary performance. Her teaching spans from the repertoire of Zensabō to shakuhachi and meditation and improvisation. Her aim is to help disseminate the knowledge and love for the shakuhachi. Her love of teaching shakuhachi has been noticed by many of her students.
Day is presently living at the meditation centre, Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede, Denmark.
Suizan J.-F. Lagrost (ラグロ水山)
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū, KSK, Contemporary, Sankyoku and Shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Sōzan Kariya (Shin Tozan-Ryū), Véronique Piron (KSK)
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.flute-shakuhachi.com
Email: lagrost@flute-shakuhachi.com
Biography: Suizan J.-F. Lagrost is professor of art education at the Conservatories of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre and Asnières near Paris. As a versatile musician, he excels in both the Western and Japanese musics. After a traditional curriculum of concert flute in Mulhouse and Paris, then a DEA of Music of the 20th century at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he began the shakuhachi in 2000 (Tozan style) and obtained in 2014 the title of Dai-Shihan (grand master).
The diversity of his expertise conducts him to appear in a variety of backgrounds : the Ensemble de flûtes de Paris, flute & piano recitals in Taiwan, as a soloist with the Musique de la Garde républicaine, as well as Summer Schools and Festivals of shakuhachi in Europe (Barcelona, Prague, etc.)
He published in 2013 a Japanese chamber music CD entitled “Kyoku” with the koto player Mieko Miyazaki.
As a Senior Advisor of the European Shakuhachi Society, he has founded and administered since 2011 the world’s main forum of shakuhachi (www.shakuhachiforum.eu).
Daniel Lifermann
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri school, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Franck Noël
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.fr
Address: La Voie du Bambou, 19 rue de Conflans, F-94220 Charenton
Tel/Fax: 33 (0)1 43 53 25 60
Email: nardlife18@gmail.com
Biography: Daniel LIFERMANN started learning shakuhachi in 1983 during a trip to Japan. Back in France he studied with Franck NOËL (a YOKOYAMA’s student). From 1989 to 1997 he studied with Yoshikazu IWAMOTO. He also studied with Gunnar JINMEI LINDER.
Since 1999 he is a follower of Teruhisa FUKUDA (Kohachiro MIYATA’s student and founder of the Hijiri school /Sainte-École), with whom he regularly organizes intensive courses, he obtained the title of Dai Shihan and the name of “Sei Soku” (“breath of wisdom “) in 2008.
Since 1988, Daniel LIFERMANN teaches the shakuhachi, and in 1994 he founded the French association La Voie du Bambou, whose purpose is to spread wings and practice of shakuhachi. He works tirelessly to share what he received from the various masters he met and performs regularly in concert.
Antonio Enzan Olías - アントニオ · 炎山 · オリアス
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu Chikumeisha, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan,
Tozan, Fukeshu Shakuhachi, Gendai Hogaku “Japanese Contemporary Music”.
Teachers’ teacher: Tanaka Komei, Teruhisa Fukuda, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi,
Kuniyoshi Sugawara, Tanabe Shozan, Katoh Hidekazu, Anne Norman
Languages: Spanish, English
Teaching Locations: Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: –
Email: antonio.enzan@gmail.com
Biography: Antonio Enzan took up the shakuhachi in 2001 whilst he was living in Melbourne Australia and he started lessons with Anne Norman. In 2005 he was awarded with the Gen Foundation Grant and the AIE Grant to further his shakuhachi studies in Japan.
He received instruction under the direction of the best shakuhachi masters. In classic styles he studied with Tanaka Komei, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi. Modern and Contemporary music with Teruhisa Fukuda, Kuniyoshi Sugawara and Tanabe Shôzan.
In 2011 Etsuzan Fujiyoshi sensei awarded him with the professional name Saiho Enzan ·西方炎山· that means Fire Mountain from the West. In 2014 Teruhisa Fukuda awarded him with the Shakuhachi Dai Shihan “Grand Shakuhachi Master” license.
He has performed in Japan, Egypt, India, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Belgium and widely in Spain. He recorded his first album “Encuentros” in 2007 in Japan. He has collaborated with the especialist in Medieval Music Eduardo Paniagua recording the album “Cantigas de Nuestro Señor” performing Medieval Music Composed by Alphonse X The Wise. He has recently collaborated in the album of Erwin Grafe “Canciones Incrustables”.
Vlastislav Matoušek
Schools/styles taught: Contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Kifu Mitsuhashi
Languages: Czech
Teaching Locations: Prague, Czech Republic
Skype lessons:
Address/website: Vlastislav Matousek
Email: matousek@shakuhachi.cz
Biography:
Véronique Piron
Schools/styles taught: KSK, traditional and modern styles
Teacher’s teacher: : Katsuya YOKOYAMA, Teruo FURUYA, Yoshikazu IWAMOTO
Languages: French, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: France (Paris and Bretagne), Belgium (Brussels)
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.veroniquepiron.com (français) / www.veroniquepiron.com/en (english)
Email: nipponflutes@gmail.com
Biography: Véronique Piron is a French flautist and a shakuhachi player. She received her shakuhachi Master’s Licence Shihan from Yokoyama Katsuya in 2002 while awarded a Lavoisier research grant from the French government for studying in Japan. She has participated in the creation of the ESS, being an officer until 2012, and the development of the shakuhachi in Europe. In Japan, she also learned nohkan and shinobue from Nishikawa Kohei of the Ensemble Pro-Nipponia, which lead her later to get a French State Diploma and a Professor’s licence, for teaching Japanese traditional music in the French conservatorium system. Based in West of France (Bretagne), she is produced by “Big Bravo Spectacles -production” in a Japanese music programme and in a creative music programme. She has recorded several shakuhachi CD’s.
DOKYOKU
Rodrigo Rodriguez
Schools/styles taught: Mu Ryu, Kinko Ryu, Dokyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miya, Kakizakai Kaoru
Languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Catalan.
Teaching Locations: Spain, Portugal
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Email: info@rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Biography: Rodrigo Rodriguez is a shakuhachi player internationally known specialist in the Japanese flute, has performed in numerous concert halls in Asia, Europe, South Pacific and Latin America.
Among his important tours he performed in the “Tokyo Imperial Hotel” events NHK, in the temple of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, or Tchaivkosky Conservatory, Moscow Russia.
He has lived and studied in Japan with the renowned master of Japan’s leading players of shakuhachi Miyata Kohachiro, and Kakizakai Kaoru.
HIJIRI-KAI
Hélène Seiyu Codjo
Schools/styles taught: Fukuda’s school Hijiri-kai (or “Sainte-école”): honkyoku and modern pieces
Teacher’s teacher: Fukuda Teruhisa and Daniel Seisoku Lifermann
Languages: French, English, Dutch
Teaching Locations: Nijmegen, Arnhem (the Netherlands)
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: http://www.fluitshakuhachi.nl
Email: helene@fluitshakuhachi.nl
Biography: Hélène Seiyu Codjo is a French flutist and started to learn shakuhachi with Daniel Seisoku Lifermann in Paris in the French association “La Voie du Bambou”. Since 2006, she regularly attends the masterclasses of Fukuda Tehurisa, founder of the ensemble and school “Hijiri-Kai”. In January 2013, she got from him the title of “Jun Shihan” with the name “Seiyu”.
She also followed masterclasses in Prague, Paris and Rotterdam with Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Jim Franklin, Shimura Zempo, Yodo Kurahashi II and Koichi Yoshida.
She plays in concerts and shows with comedians and storytellers (“Une saison au Japon” with Fabienne Thiéry). She also writes shows where she plays other world flutes (quena, dizi, Senegalese flutes,…) in addition to the shakuhachi and the western flutes.
She recorded a dozen of CDs for children with her different flutes.
She lives now in the Netherlands, where she gives lessons, workshops and concerts.
Daniel Lifermann
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri school, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Franck Noël
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.fr
Address: La Voie du Bambou, 19 rue de Conflans, F-94220 Charenton
Tel/Fax: 33 (0)1 43 53 25 60
Email: nardlife18@gmail.com
Biography: Daniel LIFERMANN started learning shakuhachi in 1983 during a trip to Japan. Back in France he studied with Franck NOËL (a YOKOYAMA’s student). From 1989 to 1997 he studied with Yoshikazu IWAMOTO. He also studied with Gunnar JINMEI LINDER.
Since 1999 he is a follower of Teruhisa FUKUDA (Kohachiro MIYATA’s student and founder of the Hijiri school /Sainte-École), with whom he regularly organizes intensive courses, he obtained the title of Dai Shihan and the name of “Sei Soku” (“breath of wisdom “) in 2008.
Since 1988, Daniel LIFERMANN teaches the shakuhachi, and in 1994 he founded the French association La Voie du Bambou, whose purpose is to spread wings and practice of shakuhachi. He works tirelessly to share what he received from the various masters he met and performs regularly in concert.
Khagan Kugo SeiSon
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri Kai, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music and improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Daniel Liferman
Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Teruo Furuya
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: https://www.dojodelelephantblanc.fr/cours-ateliers/shakuhachi/
Email: dojodelelephantblanc@gmail.com
Biography: Khagan Kugo SeiSon pratique le shakuhachi depuis 2005 ans en suivant l’enseignement de Daniel Seisoku Liferman et maître Teruhisa Fukuda dans le cadre de l’école Hijiri Kai. Il a aussi étudié avec Teruo Furuya et Gunnar Linder.
Pratiquant le Zen depuis plus de 40 ans en tant que disciple de maître Taisen Deshimaru, et étant artiste de scène et metteur en scène, il aspire à réaliser par la pratique du shakuhachi, la fusion des dimensions spirituelles, méditatives et artistiques de la voie du Bouddha.
Dans son enseignement il transmet autant la pratique méditative de l’instrument que la pratique scénique (pièces traditionnelles et improvisations).
En juillet 2017 il reçoit le titre de Jiun-Shihan de maître Teruhisa Fukuda avec le nom de SeiSon (Incarnation de Sagesse).
En avril 2019 il a reçoit le titre de Shihan de maître Teruhisa Fukuda.
IMPROVISATION
Clive Bell
Schools/styles taught: Just how to play the shakuhachi.
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miyata
Languages: English
Teaching Locations: London
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.clivebell.co.uk
Email: clive.bell@tesco.net
Biography: Clive Bell is a musician, composer and writer with a specialist interest in the shakuhachi, khene and other Far Eastern wind instruments. He has travelled extensively in Japan (where he studied the shakuhachi ¬ or Japanese flute¬ for two years with the master Kohachiro Miyata), Thailand, Laos and Bali, researching music and meeting local practitioners.
Clive is the shakuhachi player on Karl Jenkins’s album Requiem on EMI Classics, and the final two Harry Potter movies. His shakuhachi playing was featured in a live solo session on Radio 3’s Late Junction. A musician who regularly joins David Ross, Sylvia Hallett, Mike Adcock and Peter Cusack in various improvisation duos and trios, Clive Bell has a substantial recording history as both a solo artist (his solo album, Shakuhachi: The Japanese Flute was reissued in 2005 by ARC Records) and as a composer for film, TV and theatrical productions (Complicite, IOU, Whalley Range Allstars). Kazuko Hohki, Jah Wobble, David Sylvian, Steve Beresford, David Toop, Jochen Irmler of Faust, Paul Schütze and Bill Laswell number among Clive Bell’s collaborators.
Based in London, he writes regularly for the music monthly The Wire.
Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
Schools/styles taught: Kinko (honkyoku, sankyoku),
Myôan, contemporary, improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: YAMAGUCHI Goro, OKAMOTO Chikugai, FUJII Kunie
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Tokyo, world wide
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.yohmei.com
Email: yohmei@gol.com
Biography: Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began the shakuhachi and studies of Japanese music in 1972 with Living National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi. He also studied Fuke shakuhachi under Okamoto Chikugai, jiuta ensemble playing with Fujii Kunie and ryûteki flute under Shiba Sukeyasu. In 1982 he received an MFA in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and is one of only two non-Japanese to be accredited as a shihan master by Yamaguchi. Performing in Japan and around the world, Blasdel maintains a balance between traditional shakuhachi music, modern compositions and cross-genre work with musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists.
Discography includes Navarasa (2009), Breath Play (2007), Visionary Tones (2005) and several other CDs of traditional and contemporary music. He has composed and performed music for NHK documentaries and various films. He co-organized the World Shakuhachi Festival ’98 held in Boulder, Colorado and the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival in 2008. He is the senior advisor to the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festival. His semi-autobiographical book, The Single Tone—A Personal Journey through Shakuhachi Music (Printed Matter Press, 2005) and The Shakuhachi, A Manual for Learning (1988) are two of the most important English language resource books on the shakuhachi.
He presently teaches Japanese music at Temple University in Tokyo and is coordinator/mentor for the Columbia University Hôgaku Program. He holds a third-degree black belt in Aikido.
Horacio Curti
Schools/styles taught: Koten Honkyoku Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan style, Improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei
Languages: Spanish, English, Catalán and some Portuguese
Teaching Locations: Barcelona and other places in Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.es, shakuhachies.wordpress.com/
Email: horacio.curti@gmail.com
Biography: Horacio Curti encountered the Shakuhachi for the first time on the Indian Himalayas. Fascinated by its sound, decided to go to Japan where he started his studies under Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei focusing on the Koten Honkyoku music. There he received his Shakuhachi Shihan (Shakuhachi master degree) from Yokoyama Katsuya Sensei in 2004.
Besides his work with the Koten Honkyoku, he started researching on contemporary forms such as “free improvised music” collaborating both with musicians and dancers, poetry and theatre, and especially “western classical contemporary music” both solo and as part of the Mei trio, premiering several compositions.
He has performed and taught in Argentina, Chile, Belgium, Holland, UK, France, Japan, Spain and USA.
He completed his studies in Ethnomusicology in 2005, specializing in Japanese music practices. At present he is teacher at the “Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya” and “SAE Barcelona”.
After several free improvised music recordings, in 2009 was published his first solo album, ichi, by Agharta Music. In 2012 Viena Edicions released the Book-CD “Contes Zen. Petites històries per despertar” a compilation of Zen stories by Marta Millà accompanied by a disc with a narration of some of the stories with music by Horacio Curti. More information in www.shakuhachi.es
Kiku Day
Schools/styles taught: Zensabō, contemporary music, min’yō, improvisation and meditation and shakuhachi
Teacher’s teacher: Okuda Atsuya
Languages: Danish, English, French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Denmark
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.kikuday.com
Email: kikuday@gmail.com
Biography:
Kiku Day (PhD, London; MFA, Mills; BA, London) is a jinashi shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist.
Dr Day trained shakuhachi playing with Okuda Atsuya for more than a decade in Japan and since her return to Europe has dedicated her life to the dissemination of the shakuhachi on that continent. She is a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society, which she currently serves as chairperson. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith and Joanna MacGregor and as a soloist with the Nonsuch Choir and with Odense Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu Tōru’s November Steps. Day is always exploring new possibilities with the shakuhachi in unconventional collaborations such as dance, narrative performance and film.
Her research has been mainly performance based and focused in particular on the potential use of the jinashi shakuhach in contemporary performance. Her teaching spans from the repertoire of Zensabō to shakuhachi and meditation and improvisation. Her aim is to help disseminate the knowledge and love for the shakuhachi. Her love of teaching shakuhachi has been noticed by many of her students.
Day is presently living at the meditation centre, Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede, Denmark.
JIN NYODO
Koichi Nazarov Yoshida
Schools/styles taught: Mujuan Shakuhachi dojo / kinko style, Jin Nyodo style
Teacher’s teacher: Yodo Kurahashi
Languages: Japanese, English, Russian
Teaching Locations: Moscow, Russia
Skype lessons: Yes (skype name:koichi21net)
Address/website: www.kosuian.com
Email: koichi21net@gmail.com
Biography: Koichi Nazarov Yoshida was born in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture、Japan. During student years he played blues and rock guitar, but also tried to play different musical instruments including ethnic ones. He was strongly impressed by shakuhachi sound and as a result he started to learn Kinko style shakuhachi under renowned Sensei Yodo Kurahashi, and is currently an active performer of traditional repertoire, as well as rock, jazz, folk music, and improvisation.
In 2009 he formed YUGAO, an ensemble project for shakuhachi, piano, cello, and tabla. He performs frequently in the museums and tea-houses of Kyoto. He also had YUGAO tour in Spain, France, London (2011), and original solo tour TAKEKAZE in France, Switzerland and Germany (2012), featuring with a calligrapher Ekaterina Nazarova, and being involved in a project “Sounds of Zen”.
“Sounds of Zen” (Tomokazu Takeda director) is a documentary movie about shakuhachi music, the attitude to Zen music and Zen culture in Japan and abroad. The movie is supposed to be on the screen in 2015. Due to this project, he had tour in October 2012 including Russia, Armenia, France, Germany and Switzerland. From January 2013 during 3 months Koichi Nazarov Yoshida lived and performed in France.
From May 2013 he lives and performs in Moscow, Russia.
KIFU-KAI
Marek Kimei Matvija
Schools/styles taught: Kifu-kai, Myoan style
Teacher’s teacher: Kifu Mitsuhashi, Vlastislav Matoušek
Languages: Czech, English
Teaching Locations: Prague (at NEIRO Association for Expanding Arts)
Skype lessons: no
Address/website: www.matvija.cz
Email: marek@neiro.org
Biography:
Marek Kimei Matvija
*1985
Czech master player of the shakuhachi, Japanese bamboo flute. He is a performer of contemporary, improvised, and Japanese traditional ensemble and solo music. He has graduated at the Centre for Audiovisual Studies of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) and has studied under Czech pioneer of the shakuhachi and a composer, Vlastislav Matoušek. Since 2009, Marek continues his studies with Matoušek’s teacher Mitsuhashi Kifu. In 2017, he was awarded the title nattori shihan of the Kifu-kai and a performance name Kimei, 貴明.
Marek Matvija has performed throughout the Czech Republic and in Japan, Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, USA and Portugal. He is a member of the Topos Kolektiv, ensemble for site-specific improvised music, and the artistic director of the International Shakuhachi Festival Prague.
KINKO-RYU (e.g. Araki ha, Chikumeisha, Chikuyūsha)
Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
Schools/styles taught: Kinko (honkyoku, sankyoku),
Myôan, contemporary, improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: YAMAGUCHI Goro, OKAMOTO Chikugai, FUJII Kunie
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Tokyo, world wide
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.yohmei.com
Email: yohmei@gol.com
Biography: Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began the shakuhachi and studies of Japanese music in 1972 with Living National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi. He also studied Fuke shakuhachi under Okamoto Chikugai, jiuta ensemble playing with Fujii Kunie and ryûteki flute under Shiba Sukeyasu. In 1982 he received an MFA in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and is one of only two non-Japanese to be accredited as a shihan master by Yamaguchi. Performing in Japan and around the world, Blasdel maintains a balance between traditional shakuhachi music, modern compositions and cross-genre work with musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists.
Discography includes Navarasa (2009), Breath Play (2007), Visionary Tones (2005) and several other CDs of traditional and contemporary music. He has composed and performed music for NHK documentaries and various films. He co-organized the World Shakuhachi Festival ’98 held in Boulder, Colorado and the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival in 2008. He is the senior advisor to the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festival. His semi-autobiographical book, The Single Tone—A Personal Journey through Shakuhachi Music (Printed Matter Press, 2005) and The Shakuhachi, A Manual for Learning (1988) are two of the most important English language resource books on the shakuhachi.
He presently teaches Japanese music at Temple University in Tokyo and is coordinator/mentor for the Columbia University Hôgaku Program. He holds a third-degree black belt in Aikido.
Michael Soumei Coxall
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryu honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Goro
Languages: English, Japanese.
Teaching locations: Oxford, England.
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: Soumei Shakuhachi
Email: chikusoumei@gmail.com
Biography: Michael Soumei Coxall studied shakuhachi under the legendary Yamaguchi Goro (1933–99) in Japan from 1979 to 1984 and continued his studies with him on frequent visits to Japan until 1999. Yamaguchi Goro was the head of the Chikumeisha branch of Kinko-ryu shakuhachi, one of the oldest existing shakuhachi lineages, and was the youngest ever performer to be designated as a ‘Living Cultural Treasure’ and played the most wonderful music. Since then, Michael has continued to study sankyoku (music to accompany koto and shamisen repertoires) and honkyoku (traditional solo pieces) under Mizuno Kohmei, one of Goro-sensei’s foremost students and presently head of Chikumeisha, and he received his Shihan (Master’s Licence) in 2007. Michael also studied shinkyoku (new music) under Sugawara Kuniyoshi in Japan
From 1986 to 2009, Michael taught full-time at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and took over teaching shakuhachi there from Iwamoto Yoshikazu from 1992 onwards. In 2006, he was one of the co-founders of the European Shakuhachi Society (ESS), a registered charity to promote an understanding and dissemination of shakuhachi and Japanese music throughout Europe, and has been organising and teaching many ESS Summer Schools and online workshops since then including the World Shakuhachi Festival in 2018.
Michael has performed widely in Japan and Europe with some of Japan’s finest koto, shamisen and shakuhachi players including performances at the National Theatre, Tokyo, and continues to teach shakuhachi honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku music in the UK. He is a member of the Hibiki Ensemble with Kitamura Keiko and is also head of the UK branch of Chikumeisha.
Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Schools/styles taught: Kinko, Taizan, Nezasa Ha,
Teachers’ Teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller,
Shimura Zenpô Satoshi, Kawase Junsuke III
Languages: Swiss, German, French, English
Teaching Locations: Basel and Bern, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Email: ueli.derendinger@bluewin.ch
Biography: 1954 in Olten geboren und aufgewachsen. Studium der Querflöte bei Felix Manz an der Musik-Akademie Basel. 1980 – 1988 Studium der japanischen Bambusflöte Shakuhachi bei Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller in Basel (Kinko-Stil), 1988-89 bei Shimura Zenpô Satoshi in Osaka (Myôan-Stil). 1998 Verleihung des Meistertitels (shihan) und des Meisternamens Fuyûru durch Kawase Junsuke III Tôkyô (Kinko-Stil). 2008 Weiterbildung bei Shimura Zenpô Satoshi in Japan.
Im Jahr 2002 erhielt Ueli Derendinger von seinem Heimatkanton Solothurn den Kulturpreis für Musik.
Ueli Derendinger gibt regelmässig Solokonzerte im In- und Ausland mit Stücken des klassischen Shakuhachi Repertoires und zeitgenössischer Musik für Shakuhachi. Er tritt aber auch immer wieder in Verbindung mit anderen Kunstgattungen auf, so etwa in den Bereichen Tanz, japanische Kalligraphie, westliche bildende Kunst und Literatur. Mit den Tänzerinnen Chin Kham Yoke (Malaysia), Heidi S. Durning (Japan), Silvia Buol (Schweiz), den Kalligraphen Sanae Sakamoto und Hiroyuki Matsumoto, dem Künstler Martin Cleiss, dem Schriftsteller Tim Krohn, den Musikern Lukas Rohner, Jürg Zurmühle (Shakuhachi) und Silvain Guignard (Biwa) hat er verschiedene Performances erarbeitet und in Japan, Deutschland und der Schweiz zur Aufführung gebracht. Dabei spielt die Improvisation, die ihm seit seinen Jugendjahren lieb und wichtig ist, eine grosse Rolle. Die weite Dynamik und Klangvielfalt sowie die Möglichkeit zu Glissandi und mikrotonalen Veränderungen prädestinieren die Shakuhachi geradezu für die improvisierte Musik.
1999 gründete Ueli Derendinger zusammen mit dem Alphornspieler Balthasar Streiff (stimmhorn) das Duo sanshi/purpurberg. Japanische und schweizerische Tradition treffen aufeinander, durch Improvisation und freies Spiel werden Grenzen gesprengt, der Dialog gelingt.
Fiore De Mattia (Sei-Chiku)
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Honkyoku
Teachers’ teacher: Daniel Lifermann, Teruhisa Fukuda
Languages: Italian
Teaching Locations: Alzano Lombardo (BG), Borgone (TO), Italy
Skype lessons: No
Address/website:
Fiore De Mattia, Via Marconi 12, 24022 Alzano Lombardo (BG), Italy
tel. 035511259
cell. 346 8122492
Email: fiore@flautoshakuhachi.it
Biography: Fiore De Mattia, Italy (1960)
– I am a member of the French society “La Voie Du Bambou”, whose purpose is to teach and disseminate Shakuhachi.
– In 2003, I began learning Shakuhachi with Master Daniel LIFERMANN and as of 2006, I continued studying under the guidance of Master Teruhisa FUKUDA, from the Kinko school “Hijiri”/ “Sainte École”.
– Since 2012, I hold concerts in Italy and France : “The Sound of Zen Buddhism”.
– In 2013, I achieved the title of Shihan, granted by Master Tehurisha FUKUDA
Wolfgang Fuyûgen Heßler
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu, Itchoken Ryu
Teacher’s teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller, Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Zürich, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.komuso.ch
Email: w.hessler@komuso.ch
Biography: Wolfgang Hessler belongs to a modern generation of musicians, who’s education and work is based not only on the music of one culture.
Grown up in Munich he studied doublebass with Herbert Duft and graduated from the Munich College of Music. Following he worked at the Orchestra of the State-Opera (National Theatre Munich), the Munich Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony-Orchestra, partly still during his studies.
In Switzerland Wolfgang Hessler studied the Japanese bamboo-flute shakuhachi in the tradition of the Kinko-School with Dr. Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller at the Studio for extraeuropean Music of the Academie of Music Basel. Several journeys to and study visits in Japan took him to Kawase Junsuke III, head of the Zenkoku Chikuyusha in Tokyo, who performed the Shihan-Menyô-Ceremony for him to confirm the reception of the tradition. In addition, Wolfgang Hessler studied with Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada in the tradition of the temple Itchôken (Hakata/Kyûshu). Wolfgang Hessler lives and teaches in Zurich, performing in concerts and recitals traditional Japanese music (honkyoku and gaikyoku) and modern music as well as with improvisation ensembles.
Influenced by Sergiu Celibidache, affected by the practice of playing the shakuhachi as an exercise in concentration and respiration of the Fuke-monks in Japan, he dedicates his activity to the spiritual dimension of making music. Leaving behind any concept and construct, any will and intention, making music happens as activity in alertness and concentration, guided by one’s proper breath and the almost unexhaustable tone colour of the shakuhachi.
IT plays. This is not extraneous to western music, but hardly anyone knows about that nowadays.
Daniel Lifermann
Schools/styles taught: Hijiri school, Kinko Ryu, Koten Honkyoku, contemporary music
Teacher’s teacher: Teruhisa Fukuda, Yoshikazu Iwamoto, Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Franck Noël
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: France
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.fr
Address: La Voie du Bambou, 19 rue de Conflans, F-94220 Charenton
Tel/Fax: 33 (0)1 43 53 25 60
Email: nardlife18@gmail.com
Biography: Daniel LIFERMANN started learning shakuhachi in 1983 during a trip to Japan. Back in France he studied with Franck NOËL (a YOKOYAMA’s student). From 1989 to 1997 he studied with Yoshikazu IWAMOTO. He also studied with Gunnar JINMEI LINDER.
Since 1999 he is a follower of Teruhisa FUKUDA (Kohachiro MIYATA’s student and founder of the Hijiri school /Sainte-École), with whom he regularly organizes intensive courses, he obtained the title of Dai Shihan and the name of “Sei Soku” (“breath of wisdom “) in 2008.
Since 1988, Daniel LIFERMANN teaches the shakuhachi, and in 1994 he founded the French association La Voie du Bambou, whose purpose is to spread wings and practice of shakuhachi. He works tirelessly to share what he received from the various masters he met and performs regularly in concert.
Gunnar Jinmei Linder
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Gorō
Languages: Swedish, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Sweden and Scandinavia
Skype lessons: gunnar_linder_in_tokyo
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.biz
Kallangsvagen 7, 2 tr, S-181 43 Lidingo
Telephone: +46 (0)8 731 04 61
Mobile: +46 (0)708 32 33 14
Email: shakuhachi.biz@mac.com
Biography: Gunnar Linder started to learn shakuhachi after arriving in Japan in 1985. He studied with Yamaguchi Gorō (Kinko-ryū, Chikumeisha) from 1985 from whom he received his shakuhachi Shihan (Chikumeisha Kinko-ryu Master’s Licence) and continued his studies in Japan until 2005. He is on the Council of Chikumeisha (chikumeisha hyōgi-in). Gunnar now lives and teaches in Stockholm, Sweden
* Head of Chikumeisha European Branch; keiko-ba in Stockholm.
* Head of Chikumeisha. Tachikawa Branch.
* Member of Kinko-ryū Kyōkai, Nihon Sankyoku Kyōkai, Komusō Kenkyūkai.
* Ph.D. in Japanology: Stockholm University.
* M.A. in Shakuhachi as Performing Art: Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku.
* B.A. in Japanology and Philosophy. Main genres: kinko-ryū honkyoku, sankyoku (jiuta-sōkyoku), improvisation.
Antonio Enzan Olías - アントニオ · 炎山 · オリアス
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu Chikumeisha, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan,
Tozan, Fukeshu Shakuhachi, Gendai Hogaku “Japanese Contemporary Music”.
Teachers’ teacher: Tanaka Komei, Teruhisa Fukuda, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi,
Kuniyoshi Sugawara, Tanabe Shozan, Katoh Hidekazu, Anne Norman
Languages: Spanish, English
Teaching Locations: Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: –
Email: antonio.enzan@gmail.com
Biography: Antonio Enzan took up the shakuhachi in 2001 whilst he was living in Melbourne Australia and he started lessons with Anne Norman. In 2005 he was awarded with the Gen Foundation Grant and the AIE Grant to further his shakuhachi studies in Japan.
He received instruction under the direction of the best shakuhachi masters. In classic styles he studied with Tanaka Komei, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi. Modern and Contemporary music with Teruhisa Fukuda, Kuniyoshi Sugawara and Tanabe Shôzan.
In 2011 Etsuzan Fujiyoshi sensei awarded him with the professional name Saiho Enzan ·西方炎山· that means Fire Mountain from the West. In 2014 Teruhisa Fukuda awarded him with the Shakuhachi Dai Shihan “Grand Shakuhachi Master” license.
He has performed in Japan, Egypt, India, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Belgium and widely in Spain. He recorded his first album “Encuentros” in 2007 in Japan. He has collaborated with the especialist in Medieval Music Eduardo Paniagua recording the album “Cantigas de Nuestro Señor” performing Medieval Music Composed by Alphonse X The Wise. He has recently collaborated in the album of Erwin Grafe “Canciones Incrustables”.
Rodrigo Rodriguez
Schools/styles taught: Mu Ryu, Kinko Ryu, Dokyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miya, Kakizakai Kaoru
Languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Catalan.
Teaching Locations: Spain, Portugal
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Email: info@rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Biography: Rodrigo Rodriguez is a shakuhachi player internationally known specialist in the Japanese flute, has performed in numerous concert halls in Asia, Europe, South Pacific and Latin America.
Among his important tours he performed in the “Tokyo Imperial Hotel” events NHK, in the temple of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, or Tchaivkosky Conservatory, Moscow Russia.
He has lived and studied in Japan with the renowned master of Japan’s leading players of shakuhachi Miyata Kohachiro, and Kakizakai Kaoru.
Ursula Fuyûmi Schmidiger-Jasch
Schools/styles taught: Kinko
Teacher’s teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Switzerland, Ober-Kuonimattweg 50, 6010 Kriens/Luzern
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.chikuyusha.ch
Email: u.yashu@hotmail.com
Biography: Since 1988 Ursula Fuyûmi Schmidiger has stuidied the art of traditional Japanese archery and heads the Kyudo group Shoken, Kriens/Luzern. Within the framework of a Kyudo seminar she experienced shakuhachi music for the first time live and was fascinated by the sound of this instrument. In the summer of 1998, she began studying the shakuhachi at the Studio of non-European music at the Music Academy in the city of Basel with Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller, master in the tradition of the Kinko school. In September 2010 she received the teaching diploma (shihan menjô) Zenkoku Chikuyûsha and was granted the master name Fuyûmi in Tokyo by Kawase Junsuke lll.
Richard Stagg
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu
Teacher’s teacher: Yoshikazu Iwamoto
Languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Wembley, UK
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: Tel: 0208-200 9593
Email: stagg516@btinternet.com
Biography: Richard Stagg has been a professional orchestral flute-player for the last thirty-five years, working in the Scottish National Orchestra and then in the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London, from which he retired in 2008. He has been studying and playing shakuhachi for thirty years, and was a pupil of the late Yoshikazu Iwamoto. He now teaches shakuhachi and makes, repairs and tunes instruments. He performs publicly on the shakuhachi in the UK and in Japan. He has recorded a number of CDs as a member of the Yamato Ensemble, as well as a solo album and a disc of duets with Hidekazu Kato, under the ARC label.
Richard is happy to teach people of any age or level of attainment. After the ‘first note’ stage (however little or long it may take!) he starts his pupils off straightaway learning to read shakuhachi notation (Kinko or Tozan) and he believes in relating this directly to European notation pitch-equivalents at all stages of progress. He teaches the styles of honkyoku and sankyoku from the 17th Century up to and through the 20th. He can give advice on choosing an instrument, and can help in providing or obtaining instruments for beginners who are without them. He always tries to build his pupils’ confidence and to make it fun to learn the shakuhachi.
Justin Senryu Williams
Schools/styles taught: Honkyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha, Seien Ryu
(Fudaiji temple), Chikushinkai (a.k.a. Dokyoku), Kimpu Ryu (a.k.a. Nezasa Ha), Myoan Shimpo Ryu, Myoan Taizan Ryu, Oshu Kei, Echigo Myoan, Kyushu Kei
Sankyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha
Teacher’s teacher: Araki Kodo V, Yokoyama Katsuya, Furuya Teruo, Iwata Seien VI, Otsubo Shido, Fujiyoshi Etsuzan, Takahashi Rochiku, Sato Jokan, Kurahashi Yodo II, Michael Coxall, Kanda Kayu
Languages: English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: London, England
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.senryushakuhachi.com
Email: Please see www.senryushakuhachi.com
Biography: Justin Senryu lived in Japan from 2005 undertaking 6 years of intensive shakuhachi study from the top masters of each Edo period honkyoku lineage. His teachers include:
• Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya (head of Chikushinkai) from whom he received his first Shihan (Master’s license), and the name ‘Senryu’ as both a professional player and maker in 2007.
• The Grandmaster of Kinko Ryu, Araki Kodo V, from whom he received his second Shihan, and the prestigious makers’ stamp ‘Kodo-sen’ (‘chosen by Kodo’) for his shakuhachi making.
• The Seien Ryu iemoto Iwata Seien VI, who authorised him to teach.
• The oldest Kyoto lineage of Shimpo Ryu; Kimpu Ryu and others from Otsubo Shido, who requested Justin to continue and propagate these precious lineages.
• Various rare lineages from other teachers.
Justin has performed, taught workshops and given lectures across Europe and Asia. He specialises in historic regional styles, having studied and researched in depth every extant Koten Honkyoku style. Justin also studied and practiced Buddhism for 17 years primarily in monasteries in India, Nepal and Thailand. He moved to Europe in 2011, and gives shakuhachi lessons and also Buddhist Psychotherapy in London, and teaches internationally via Skype.
KOKUSAI SHAKUHACHI KENSHUKAN (KSK)
Horacio Curti
Schools/styles taught: Koten Honkyoku Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan style, Improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei
Languages: Spanish, English, Catalán and some Portuguese
Teaching Locations: Barcelona and other places in Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.es, shakuhachies.wordpress.com/
Email: horacio.curti@gmail.com
Biography: Horacio Curti encountered the Shakuhachi for the first time on the Indian Himalayas. Fascinated by its sound, decided to go to Japan where he started his studies under Kakizakai Kaoru Sensei focusing on the Koten Honkyoku music. There he received his Shakuhachi Shihan (Shakuhachi master degree) from Yokoyama Katsuya Sensei in 2004.
Besides his work with the Koten Honkyoku, he started researching on contemporary forms such as “free improvised music” collaborating both with musicians and dancers, poetry and theatre, and especially “western classical contemporary music” both solo and as part of the Mei trio, premiering several compositions.
He has performed and taught in Argentina, Chile, Belgium, Holland, UK, France, Japan, Spain and USA.
He completed his studies in Ethnomusicology in 2005, specializing in Japanese music practices. At present he is teacher at the “Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya” and “SAE Barcelona”.
After several free improvised music recordings, in 2009 was published his first solo album, ichi, by Agharta Music. In 2012 Viena Edicions released the Book-CD “Contes Zen. Petites històries per despertar” a compilation of Zen stories by Marta Millà accompanied by a disc with a narration of some of the stories with music by Horacio Curti. More information in www.shakuhachi.es
Jim Franklin
Schools/styles taught: KSK/Chikushinkai, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Dr Riley Lee, Furuya Teruo, Yokoyama Katsuya
Languages: English and German
Teaching Locations: Japan, worldwide (lessons via internet)
Skype/FaceTime/Zoom lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.bambooheart.com
1-23-13 Ichiriyama
Ōtsu-shi, Shiga-ken 520-2153
Japan
Tel. +81 77 599 0522
Email: dr_jim_franklin@t-online.de
Biography: Dr Jim Franklin is a master performer of the shakuhachi in the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan. He initially studied composition and musicology in Australia, Germany and Holland and during his studies, he encountered the shakuhachi, and was fascinated by it. After learning the instrument in Australia with Dr Riley Lee and in Japan with Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya, he received the title Shihan (Master) in 1996 from Yokoyama Katsuya.
In the area of solo shakuhachi, Franklin has specialized in the honkyoku lineage of Yokoyama Katsuya and in modern music. His concert activities extend throughout Europe as well as in Japan, where he currently lives. He has released two CDs of shakuhachi honkyoku (‘Hearing Stillness’ and ‘Zen Garden Meditations’) and a further CD of his own shakuhachi solo pieces (Butsuga), as well as several CDs of compositions and improvisations with other musicians (‘Water Spirits’, ‘Moon Road to Dawn’, ‘Abundance’, ‘Aurora’, ‘Nine-Elemental Songs’, ‘Journey of Simurgh’, ‘Trees, Stones, Water, Sand’), on the Celestial Harmonies label and with other labels.
As a composer, Franklin is active in the areas of contemporary and electroacoustic music. He composes for shakuhachi solo and in combination with other instruments, and frequently performs projects with shakuhachi and live electronics, sometimes in combination with dance and video art. The interface between shakuhachi and electronics, and shakuhachi and visual media, is a key area of interest. His works, ‘Three Treasures: Columns and Webs’ (realized in 1996 as Composer-in-Residence at the Centre for Computer Music, Kunitachi College of Music, Tokyo) and his CD ‘Songs from the Lake’ (NEOS 12029, released 2021) are representative of this musical direction.
From 2004 to 2021 Franklin lived in Germany. As a teacher, he gave individual lessons in a number of cities, including Mainz, Stuttgart, Hannover, Bergisch Gladbach (near Cologne), Heidelberg, Bamberg and Nuremberg. He offered regular workshops for beginners as well as advanced students. In 2021 he and his wife, shakuhachi player and visual artist Hiroko Sugino, emigrated to Japan; they now live in Seta, near Kyoto. As well as teaching (face-to-face and online) and performing, he now focuses on composing for shakuhachi.
Prior to emigrating to Germany in 2004, Franklin was Senior Lecturer in Music Technology in the Music Department of University of Western Sydney, including a period as Head of Department (1997-98). His connection to the academic world has been maintained through occasional publications such as the articles “Japanese Shakuhachi Honkyoku Tradition and its Reinterpretation into a Contemporary Composition Practice” (in ‘Music of the Spirit: Asian-Pacific Identity’, Australian Music Centre, 2008) and “Compositional Encounters with Shakuhachi” (in ‘The Annual of Texts by Foreign Guest Professors’, Charles University, Prague, 2008).
Franklin was instrumental in the founding of the European Shakuhachi Society, and was its foundation chairperson, from 2006 to 2009. He has taught and performed at many of the European Shakuhachi Summer Schools, including 2006, 2007 (organised together with Véronique Piron), 2010, 2012, 2013, 2014 (organised by him in Radolfzell, Germany), 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019. For many years he was also a regular performer and teacher at the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festivals.
Franklin was one of the principal organisers of the World Shakuhachi Festival in London, 2018, being responsible for programme and budget, as well as performing and teaching at the event. He has also been active at most other WSFs: teaching and performing in Boulder 1998, New York 2002, and Sydney 2008 (at which he also assumed the role of programme coordinator). He performed at Kyoto 2012.
Adrian Freedman
Schools/styles taught: KSK/Chikushinkai
Teacher’s teacher: Katsuya Yokoyama, Clive Bell
Languages: English, Portuguese and a little French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Dartington, SW. England
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.adrianfreedman.com
Email: pureland33@gmail.com
Biography: Adrian was born in Leeds, N. England in 1962 and studied music at Manchester University (1983) and at The Guildhall School of Music (1986) and has always had a broad range of musical interests, from baroque music to contemporary classical, from jazz to folk.
He began studying the shakuhachi in London with Clive Bell and then moved to Japan in 1990 where he lived for eight years devoted to the study of koten honkyoku repertoire with Yokoyama Katsuya. At this time, he also had a government scholarship as a research fellow at Kyoto University.
After leaving Japan, he spent several years in the Brazilian Amazon immersed in the study and practice of ritual music. Adrian has worked as a composer and musical director for many theatre and dance companies and has taught music projects in over 100 schools and colleges. He has used the shakuhachi in collaboration with musicians from around the globe including the African kora, Arabian oud and the Brazilian berimbau. Currently, he is based in Dartington, SW. England.
Adrian’s approach to shakuhachi teaching rests upon a deep resonance with the principle of ichion jobutsu…the universe within a single tone. He tailors his teaching style to the needs of each individual student.
Markus Guhe
Schools/styles taught: Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan (KSK)
Teacher: Kaoru Kakizakai, Clive Bell
Languages: English, German
Teaching Locations: Edinburgh, UK; Papenburg, Germany
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: markusguhe.net
Email: markusguhe@icloud.com
Biography: Dr. Markus Guhe has been performing with the Mugenkyo Taiko Drummers since 2011, doing multiple tours per year and countless performances abroad. He discovered the shakuhachi on a taiko research trip to Japan in 2012, and now the the shakuhachi is his main instrument.
In 2016 he received a shihan (master’s license) from his teacher Kaoru Kakizakai, authorising him to teach and continue the lineage of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) established by Katsuya Yokoyama.
In 2017 he won the prestigious KSK scholarship to study with his teacher in Japan.
In 2018 he released his first CD (Samazama) featuring a mix of traditional shakuhachi solo pieces and modern, self-composed music.
In 2021 he started regularly posting videos on YouTube on playing shakuhachi.
Nina Haarer
Schools/styles taught: KSK, Chikuho Honkyoku
Teacher: Dr Jim Franklin, Furuya Teruo
Languages: German, English, French, Japanese
Teaching Location: Germany
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: www.facebook.com/Nina-H
Address: Alte Esslinger Str. 10, 71394 Kernen i. R., Germany
Telephone: +49 178 6020272
Email: nina.haarer@web.de
Biography: Nina Haarer is a German Shakuhachi player and teacher. Initially trained as a singer and piano player, Nina discovered the shakuhachi when she was still a teenager, along with the Japanese language.
In 2004 she started lessons with Jim Franklin in the styles of Chikuhō and Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK). In 2018 she was awarded the KSK Europe Scholarship and studied with Furuya Teruo in Tokyo. She was awarded a shihan menjō in 2019.
Besides the traditional repertoire Nina combines the shakuhachi with different forms of art and genres, like modern dance or theater. Regular projects have been: DieTanzKompanie by Grégory Darcy and Theater Hebebühne. Her concern to bring the shakuhachi to the younger generation / a new audience found way in two punk/gothic rock bands: The Nerves (2010–2021) and Totentanz Strumpfsockig.
She is also including the shakuhachi in her job as a music therapist. Nina is the current secretary of the European Shakuhachi Society.
Suizan J.-F. Lagrost (ラグロ水山)
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū, KSK, Contemporary, Sankyoku and Shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Sōzan Kariya (Shin Tozan-Ryū), Véronique Piron (KSK)
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.flute-shakuhachi.com
Email: lagrost@flute-shakuhachi.com
Biography: Suizan J.-F. Lagrost is professor of art education at the Conservatories of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre and Asnières near Paris. As a versatile musician, he excels in both the Western and Japanese musics. After a traditional curriculum of concert flute in Mulhouse and Paris, then a DEA of Music of the 20th century at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he began the shakuhachi in 2000 (Tozan style) and obtained in 2014 the title of Dai-Shihan (grand master).
The diversity of his expertise conducts him to appear in a variety of backgrounds : the Ensemble de flûtes de Paris, flute & piano recitals in Taiwan, as a soloist with the Musique de la Garde républicaine, as well as Summer Schools and Festivals of shakuhachi in Europe (Barcelona, Prague, etc.)
He published in 2013 a Japanese chamber music CD entitled “Kyoku” with the koto player Mieko Miyazaki.
As a Senior Advisor of the European Shakuhachi Society, he has founded and administered since 2011 the world’s main forum of shakuhachi (www.shakuhachiforum.eu).
Antonio Enzan Olías - アントニオ · 炎山 · オリアス
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu Chikumeisha, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan,
Tozan, Fukeshu Shakuhachi, Gendai Hogaku “Japanese Contemporary Music”.
Teachers’ teacher: Tanaka Komei, Teruhisa Fukuda, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi,
Kuniyoshi Sugawara, Tanabe Shozan, Katoh Hidekazu, Anne Norman
Languages: Spanish, English
Teaching Locations: Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: –
Email: antonio.enzan@gmail.com
Biography: Antonio Enzan took up the shakuhachi in 2001 whilst he was living in Melbourne Australia and he started lessons with Anne Norman. In 2005 he was awarded with the Gen Foundation Grant and the AIE Grant to further his shakuhachi studies in Japan.
He received instruction under the direction of the best shakuhachi masters. In classic styles he studied with Tanaka Komei, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi. Modern and Contemporary music with Teruhisa Fukuda, Kuniyoshi Sugawara and Tanabe Shôzan.
In 2011 Etsuzan Fujiyoshi sensei awarded him with the professional name Saiho Enzan ·西方炎山· that means Fire Mountain from the West. In 2014 Teruhisa Fukuda awarded him with the Shakuhachi Dai Shihan “Grand Shakuhachi Master” license.
He has performed in Japan, Egypt, India, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Belgium and widely in Spain. He recorded his first album “Encuentros” in 2007 in Japan. He has collaborated with the especialist in Medieval Music Eduardo Paniagua recording the album “Cantigas de Nuestro Señor” performing Medieval Music Composed by Alphonse X The Wise. He has recently collaborated in the album of Erwin Grafe “Canciones Incrustables”.
Véronique Piron
Schools/styles taught: KSK, traditional and modern styles
Teacher’s teacher: : Katsuya YOKOYAMA, Teruo FURUYA, Yoshikazu IWAMOTO
Languages: French, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: France (Paris and Bretagne), Belgium (Brussels)
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.veroniquepiron.com (français) / www.veroniquepiron.com/en (english)
Email: nipponflutes@gmail.com
Biography: Véronique Piron is a French flautist and a shakuhachi player. She received her shakuhachi Master’s Licence Shihan from Yokoyama Katsuya in 2002 while awarded a Lavoisier research grant from the French government for studying in Japan. She has participated in the creation of the ESS, being an officer until 2012, and the development of the shakuhachi in Europe. In Japan, she also learned nohkan and shinobue from Nishikawa Kohei of the Ensemble Pro-Nipponia, which lead her later to get a French State Diploma and a Professor’s licence, for teaching Japanese traditional music in the French conservatorium system. Based in West of France (Bretagne), she is produced by “Big Bravo Spectacles -production” in a Japanese music programme and in a creative music programme. She has recorded several shakuhachi CD’s.
Emmanuelle Rouaud
Schools/styles taught: General introduction to shakuhachi & Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) repertoire
Teacher’s teacher: Teruo Furuya
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.emmanuelle-rouaud.com
Email: emmanuelle.rouaud@orange.fr
Biography: Emmanuelle Rouaud discovered the shakuhachi in 2006 and was fascinated by the possibilities of tone colour and sounds and began exploring the instrument.
Since 2013 Emmanuelle is studying the honkyoku and modern repertoire with Teruo Furuya, the director of the Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshūkan (KSK) in Japan and recently received her teaching license (shihan) from Teruo Furuya.
Emmanuelle is also interested in traditional sankyoku ensemble playing and has received tuition from players like Gunnar Jinmei Linder, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel and Keisuke Zenyoji among others.
Her interest in developing new repertoire for shakuhachi led her to a collaboration with French composer Henri Algadafe and premiering I thought About Eva for shakuhachi and koto at the World Shakuhachi Festival in London in 2018. Currently they are working on a new composition for electric guitar, electronics and 2.4 shakuhachi.
Emmanuelle performs shakuhachi music regularly, most recently with koto players Naoko Kikuchi and Gaho Takahashi, she also was one of the finalists of the honkyoku competition at the KSK’s 30th anniversary event in 2019 in Bisei, Japan.
Emmanuelle Rouaud lives and works near Paris, France. There she co-organises the annual Teruo Furuya/Mizuka Onishi workshop in Paris, developing shakuhachi classes in CRC Montigny-le-Bretonneux as well as teaches the silver flute (CRR Versailles Grand Parc) and offers shakuhachi teaching through her collaboration with jiari shakuhachi maker Thorsten Knaub at shakuhachi-atelier.
Justin Senryu Williams
Schools/styles taught: Honkyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha, Seien Ryu
(Fudaiji temple), Chikushinkai (a.k.a. Dokyoku), Kimpu Ryu (a.k.a. Nezasa Ha), Myoan Shimpo Ryu, Myoan Taizan Ryu, Oshu Kei, Echigo Myoan, Kyushu Kei
Sankyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha
Teacher’s teacher: Araki Kodo V, Yokoyama Katsuya, Furuya Teruo, Iwata Seien VI, Otsubo Shido, Fujiyoshi Etsuzan, Takahashi Rochiku, Sato Jokan, Kurahashi Yodo II, Michael Coxall, Kanda Kayu
Languages: English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: London, England
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.senryushakuhachi.com
Email: Please see www.senryushakuhachi.com
Biography: Justin Senryu lived in Japan from 2005 undertaking 6 years of intensive shakuhachi study from the top masters of each Edo period honkyoku lineage. His teachers include:
• Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya (head of Chikushinkai) from whom he received his first Shihan (Master’s license), and the name ‘Senryu’ as both a professional player and maker in 2007.
• The Grandmaster of Kinko Ryu, Araki Kodo V, from whom he received his second Shihan, and the prestigious makers’ stamp ‘Kodo-sen’ (‘chosen by Kodo’) for his shakuhachi making.
• The Seien Ryu iemoto Iwata Seien VI, who authorised him to teach.
• The oldest Kyoto lineage of Shimpo Ryu; Kimpu Ryu and others from Otsubo Shido, who requested Justin to continue and propagate these precious lineages.
• Various rare lineages from other teachers.
Justin has performed, taught workshops and given lectures across Europe and Asia. He specialises in historic regional styles, having studied and researched in depth every extant Koten Honkyoku style. Justin also studied and practiced Buddhism for 17 years primarily in monasteries in India, Nepal and Thailand. He moved to Europe in 2011, and gives shakuhachi lessons and also Buddhist Psychotherapy in London, and teaches internationally via Skype.
KYOTAKU
Thilo Burdach
Schools/styles taught: Kyotaku Meioan style
Teachers’ teacher: Koku Nishimura
Languages: German, English, Spanish, Italian
Teaching Locations: Berlin
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.tilopa.de
Email: tiloburdach@web.de
Biography: Born 1949, teaching T’ai Chi/Chi Gong since 1982, has studied Kyotaku with Koku Sensei since 1986,
making and teaching Kyotaku since the 1990’s, published several CDs under the name ’tilopa’,
now living with his wife in Berlin.
Hans van Loon
Schools/styles taught: Kyotaku-tradition
Languages: Dutch
Teaching Locations: The Netherlands
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.kyotaku.nl
Drielindekensdijk 1
4651 PH Steenbergen
The Netherlands
Email: hans@kyotaku.nl
Biography: Hans van Loon teaches kyotaku at his home for students from the Netherlands and Belgium. Although kyotaku has several meanings, Hans focusses on the kind of shakuhachi Koku Nishimura taught and built which is a jinashi shakuhachi with a big bore and a long length. The music played with the Kyotaku is simple and is played with a meditative attitude; the mindset while playing is more important than the result.
MEDITATION & SHAKUHACHI
Kiku Day
Schools/styles taught: Zensabō, contemporary music, min’yō, improvisation and meditation and shakuhachi
Teacher’s teacher: Okuda Atsuya
Languages: Danish, English, French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Denmark
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.kikuday.com
Email: kikuday@gmail.com
Biography:
Kiku Day (PhD, London; MFA, Mills; BA, London) is a jinashi shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist.
Dr Day trained shakuhachi playing with Okuda Atsuya for more than a decade in Japan and since her return to Europe has dedicated her life to the dissemination of the shakuhachi on that continent. She is a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society, which she currently serves as chairperson. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith and Joanna MacGregor and as a soloist with the Nonsuch Choir and with Odense Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu Tōru’s November Steps. Day is always exploring new possibilities with the shakuhachi in unconventional collaborations such as dance, narrative performance and film.
Her research has been mainly performance based and focused in particular on the potential use of the jinashi shakuhach in contemporary performance. Her teaching spans from the repertoire of Zensabō to shakuhachi and meditation and improvisation. Her aim is to help disseminate the knowledge and love for the shakuhachi. Her love of teaching shakuhachi has been noticed by many of her students.
Day is presently living at the meditation centre, Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede, Denmark.
MIN'YO
Kiku Day
Schools/styles taught: Zensabō, contemporary music, min’yō, improvisation and meditation and shakuhachi
Teacher’s teacher: Okuda Atsuya
Languages: Danish, English, French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Denmark
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.kikuday.com
Email: kikuday@gmail.com
Biography:
Kiku Day (PhD, London; MFA, Mills; BA, London) is a jinashi shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist.
Dr Day trained shakuhachi playing with Okuda Atsuya for more than a decade in Japan and since her return to Europe has dedicated her life to the dissemination of the shakuhachi on that continent. She is a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society, which she currently serves as chairperson. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith and Joanna MacGregor and as a soloist with the Nonsuch Choir and with Odense Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu Tōru’s November Steps. Day is always exploring new possibilities with the shakuhachi in unconventional collaborations such as dance, narrative performance and film.
Her research has been mainly performance based and focused in particular on the potential use of the jinashi shakuhach in contemporary performance. Her teaching spans from the repertoire of Zensabō to shakuhachi and meditation and improvisation. Her aim is to help disseminate the knowledge and love for the shakuhachi. Her love of teaching shakuhachi has been noticed by many of her students.
Day is presently living at the meditation centre, Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede, Denmark.
MUJUAN
Koichi Nazarov Yoshida
Schools/styles taught: Mujuan Shakuhachi dojo / kinko style, Jin Nyodo style
Teacher’s teacher: Yodo Kurahashi
Languages: Japanese, English, Russian
Teaching Locations: Moscow, Russia
Skype lessons: Yes (skype name:koichi21net)
Address/website: www.kosuian.com
Email: koichi21net@gmail.com
Biography: Koichi Nazarov Yoshida was born in Himeji, Hyogo prefecture、Japan. During student years he played blues and rock guitar, but also tried to play different musical instruments including ethnic ones. He was strongly impressed by shakuhachi sound and as a result he started to learn Kinko style shakuhachi under renowned Sensei Yodo Kurahashi, and is currently an active performer of traditional repertoire, as well as rock, jazz, folk music, and improvisation.
In 2009 he formed YUGAO, an ensemble project for shakuhachi, piano, cello, and tabla. He performs frequently in the museums and tea-houses of Kyoto. He also had YUGAO tour in Spain, France, London (2011), and original solo tour TAKEKAZE in France, Switzerland and Germany (2012), featuring with a calligrapher Ekaterina Nazarova, and being involved in a project “Sounds of Zen”.
“Sounds of Zen” (Tomokazu Takeda director) is a documentary movie about shakuhachi music, the attitude to Zen music and Zen culture in Japan and abroad. The movie is supposed to be on the screen in 2015. Due to this project, he had tour in October 2012 including Russia, Armenia, France, Germany and Switzerland. From January 2013 during 3 months Koichi Nazarov Yoshida lived and performed in France.
From May 2013 he lives and performs in Moscow, Russia.
MU-RYU
Rodrigo Rodriguez
Schools/styles taught: Mu Ryu, Kinko Ryu, Dokyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Kohachiro Miyata, Kakizakai Kaoru
Languages: English, Spanish, Japanese, Catalan.
Teaching Locations: Spain, Portugal
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Email: info@rodrigo-rodriguez.info
Biography: Rodrigo Rodriguez is a shakuhachi player internationally known specialist in the Japanese flute, has performed in numerous concert halls in Asia, Europe, South Pacific and Latin America.
Among his important tours he performed in the “Tokyo Imperial Hotel” events NHK, in the temple of the Great Buddha of Kamakura, or Tchaivkosky Conservatory, Moscow Russia.
He has lived and studied in Japan with the renowned master of Japan’s leading players of shakuhachi Miyata Kohachiro, and Kakizakai Kaoru.
MYOAN SCHOOLS (e.g. Echigo Myōan, Itchoken Ryū, Kyushu Kei, Myōan, Nezasa Ha (Kinpū Ryū), Ōshū Kei, Seien Ryū (Fudaiji temple), Shinpō Ryū, Taizan-ha, Taizan Ryū)
Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
Schools/styles taught: Kinko (honkyoku, sankyoku),
Myôan, contemporary, improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: YAMAGUCHI Goro, OKAMOTO Chikugai, FUJII Kunie
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Tokyo, world wide
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.yohmei.com
Email: yohmei@gol.com
Biography: Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began the shakuhachi and studies of Japanese music in 1972 with Living National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi. He also studied Fuke shakuhachi under Okamoto Chikugai, jiuta ensemble playing with Fujii Kunie and ryûteki flute under Shiba Sukeyasu. In 1982 he received an MFA in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and is one of only two non-Japanese to be accredited as a shihan master by Yamaguchi. Performing in Japan and around the world, Blasdel maintains a balance between traditional shakuhachi music, modern compositions and cross-genre work with musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists.
Discography includes Navarasa (2009), Breath Play (2007), Visionary Tones (2005) and several other CDs of traditional and contemporary music. He has composed and performed music for NHK documentaries and various films. He co-organized the World Shakuhachi Festival ’98 held in Boulder, Colorado and the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival in 2008. He is the senior advisor to the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festival. His semi-autobiographical book, The Single Tone—A Personal Journey through Shakuhachi Music (Printed Matter Press, 2005) and The Shakuhachi, A Manual for Learning (1988) are two of the most important English language resource books on the shakuhachi.
He presently teaches Japanese music at Temple University in Tokyo and is coordinator/mentor for the Columbia University Hôgaku Program. He holds a third-degree black belt in Aikido.
Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Schools/styles taught: Kinko, Taizan, Nezasa Ha,
Teachers’ Teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller,
Shimura Zenpô Satoshi, Kawase Junsuke III
Languages: Swiss, German, French, English
Teaching Locations: Basel and Bern, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger
Email: ueli.derendinger@bluewin.ch
Biography: 1954 in Olten geboren und aufgewachsen. Studium der Querflöte bei Felix Manz an der Musik-Akademie Basel. 1980 – 1988 Studium der japanischen Bambusflöte Shakuhachi bei Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller in Basel (Kinko-Stil), 1988-89 bei Shimura Zenpô Satoshi in Osaka (Myôan-Stil). 1998 Verleihung des Meistertitels (shihan) und des Meisternamens Fuyûru durch Kawase Junsuke III Tôkyô (Kinko-Stil). 2008 Weiterbildung bei Shimura Zenpô Satoshi in Japan.
Im Jahr 2002 erhielt Ueli Derendinger von seinem Heimatkanton Solothurn den Kulturpreis für Musik.
Ueli Derendinger gibt regelmässig Solokonzerte im In- und Ausland mit Stücken des klassischen Shakuhachi Repertoires und zeitgenössischer Musik für Shakuhachi. Er tritt aber auch immer wieder in Verbindung mit anderen Kunstgattungen auf, so etwa in den Bereichen Tanz, japanische Kalligraphie, westliche bildende Kunst und Literatur. Mit den Tänzerinnen Chin Kham Yoke (Malaysia), Heidi S. Durning (Japan), Silvia Buol (Schweiz), den Kalligraphen Sanae Sakamoto und Hiroyuki Matsumoto, dem Künstler Martin Cleiss, dem Schriftsteller Tim Krohn, den Musikern Lukas Rohner, Jürg Zurmühle (Shakuhachi) und Silvain Guignard (Biwa) hat er verschiedene Performances erarbeitet und in Japan, Deutschland und der Schweiz zur Aufführung gebracht. Dabei spielt die Improvisation, die ihm seit seinen Jugendjahren lieb und wichtig ist, eine grosse Rolle. Die weite Dynamik und Klangvielfalt sowie die Möglichkeit zu Glissandi und mikrotonalen Veränderungen prädestinieren die Shakuhachi geradezu für die improvisierte Musik.
1999 gründete Ueli Derendinger zusammen mit dem Alphornspieler Balthasar Streiff (stimmhorn) das Duo sanshi/purpurberg. Japanische und schweizerische Tradition treffen aufeinander, durch Improvisation und freies Spiel werden Grenzen gesprengt, der Dialog gelingt.
Wolfgang Fuyûgen Heßler
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu, Itchoken Ryu
Teacher’s teacher: Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller, Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Zürich, Switzerland
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.komuso.ch
Email: w.hessler@komuso.ch
Biography: Wolfgang Hessler belongs to a modern generation of musicians, who’s education and work is based not only on the music of one culture.
Grown up in Munich he studied doublebass with Herbert Duft and graduated from the Munich College of Music. Following he worked at the Orchestra of the State-Opera (National Theatre Munich), the Munich Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony-Orchestra, partly still during his studies.
In Switzerland Wolfgang Hessler studied the Japanese bamboo-flute shakuhachi in the tradition of the Kinko-School with Dr. Andreas Fuyû Gutzwiller at the Studio for extraeuropean Music of the Academie of Music Basel. Several journeys to and study visits in Japan took him to Kawase Junsuke III, head of the Zenkoku Chikuyusha in Tokyo, who performed the Shihan-Menyô-Ceremony for him to confirm the reception of the tradition. In addition, Wolfgang Hessler studied with Nobuhisa Ikkei Hanada in the tradition of the temple Itchôken (Hakata/Kyûshu). Wolfgang Hessler lives and teaches in Zurich, performing in concerts and recitals traditional Japanese music (honkyoku and gaikyoku) and modern music as well as with improvisation ensembles.
Influenced by Sergiu Celibidache, affected by the practice of playing the shakuhachi as an exercise in concentration and respiration of the Fuke-monks in Japan, he dedicates his activity to the spiritual dimension of making music. Leaving behind any concept and construct, any will and intention, making music happens as activity in alertness and concentration, guided by one’s proper breath and the almost unexhaustable tone colour of the shakuhachi.
IT plays. This is not extraneous to western music, but hardly anyone knows about that nowadays.
Marek Kimei Matvija
Schools/styles taught: Kifu-kai, Myoan style
Teacher’s teacher: Kifu Mitsuhashi, Vlastislav Matoušek
Languages: Czech, English
Teaching Locations: Prague (at NEIRO Association for Expanding Arts)
Skype lessons: no
Address/website: www.matvija.cz
Email: marek@neiro.org
Biography:
Marek Kimei Matvija
*1985
Czech master player of the shakuhachi, Japanese bamboo flute. He is a performer of contemporary, improvised, and Japanese traditional ensemble and solo music. He has graduated at the Centre for Audiovisual Studies of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (FAMU) and has studied under Czech pioneer of the shakuhachi and a composer, Vlastislav Matoušek. Since 2009, Marek continues his studies with Matoušek’s teacher Mitsuhashi Kifu. In 2017, he was awarded the title nattori shihan of the Kifu-kai and a performance name Kimei, 貴明.
Marek Matvija has performed throughout the Czech Republic and in Japan, Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia, USA and Portugal. He is a member of the Topos Kolektiv, ensemble for site-specific improvised music, and the artistic director of the International Shakuhachi Festival Prague.
Isabel Lerchmüller
Schools/styles taught: Myoan Taizan Ha, Improvisation, traditional and contemporary
Teacher’s teacher: Ueli Furûyu Derendinger
Languages: German, English, French
Teaching Locations: Bern, Switzerland
Skype lessons: only if there is no other possibility
Address/website: isabellerchmueller.ch
Email: isa.lerch@gmx.ch
Biography: Isabel Lerchmüller lives in Bern (Switzerland) and works as a freelance musician and teacher for flute and shakuhachi.
After receiving her teaching diploma for flute in 2005, she specialized in free improvisation. 2009 Isabel began studying shakuhachi with Ueli Fuyûru Derendinger and continued to deepen her knowledge of Japanese culture. She enjoyed several extended stays in Japan and further shakuhachi studies with Kawase Junsuke sensei III and Kawase Yousuke sensei in Tokyo.
Isabel performs as a solo artist and chamber musician. She is flutist in the OPUS Bern Orchestra and is regularly invited to perform in cross-disciplinary productions.
Isabel teaches private lessons and group workshops. She loves to play not only the regular flute and the 1.8 shakuhachi, but also alto flute, bass flute and various shakuhachi up to 2.7. Sharing musical moments means a lot to her – in concerts as well as in teaching.
Torsten Olafsson
Schools/styles taught: Myôan Taizan-ha
Teachers’ teacher: Ozawa Seizan
Languages: Danish, Swedish, English, German, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Elsinore/Helsingør, Denmark
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.torstenolafsson.dk
Email: myooan@gmail.com
Biography: Born in January 1950 in Copenhagen, Denmark, Torsten studied music from very early childhood and on: Piano, recorder, singing, bugle, drums, electric bass, acoustic guitar, vibraphone, tablas, percussion – then shakuhachi, a little koto, acoustic bass guitar and – as of lately: arabic darbuka.
First professional appearances as a pop/rock drummer in 1964-65.
1965-68: Specialized language & classical music studies in high school.
1968: Formed the symphonic rock band ACHE, who composed the world’s first genuine rock ballet, ‘De Homine Urbano’ in 1969, released on LP in 1970 (Philips) & re-released six times since then, internationally. Second ACHE album, ‘Green Man’, 1971, also reissued six times, worldwide.
1968: Began university studies in Chinese Language and Culture. BA degree in 1974.
1974: Began university studies in Japanese Language and Culture.
1977-78: Studies in Japan: Kyōto University foreign research student, and Myōan-ji, Taizan-ha shakuhachi, with Ozawa Seizan sensei, Yamashina, Kyōto.
1981: BA degree in Japanese/Japanology.
1983: Records the LP ‘Standing Waves – Zen Shakuhachi Meditations’ (Olafssongs OLP 001).
1986: Special research in the Tōkyō area. Shakuhachi studies with Yokoyama Katsuya in Chiba.
1987: MA thesis in Japanology submitted to the University of Copenhagen: ‘Early 17th Century Ascetic Shakuhachi Ideology. The Kaidō honsoku. A Komosō’s Fuke Shakuhachi Credo, dated 1628.’
1991-2000: Print Manager, then Serious Music Manager with Warner/Chappell Music Denmark A/S.
1997: On invitation by then International Shakuhachi Society president, the late Dan E. Mayers, Esq., Torsten writes an introductory essay to the ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis.
2001: ‘Standing Waves’ is re-released on CD by Fønix Musik, Denmark (Fønix Musik FM 1183).
2003: The ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis together with the introductory essay is printed and published internationally by Monty H. Levenson/Tai Hei Shakuhachi, Willits, California, USA.
2003: Website about Fuke Shakuhachi research is launched, now: www.torstenolafsson.dk.
2005: Introductory essay about the ‘Kaidō honsoku’ thesis is published by the ISS, in Annals vol. 2.
2008: The late Prof. Tsukitani Tsuneko concludes in her article in the book “The Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music”: ‘The body of shakuhachi researchers in Japan is relatively small; names that recur in the bibliography include Kamisangō, Tsukitani/Tukitani, Seyama and Simura/Shimura. It is regrettable that the most conspicuous work is being produced not in Japan but by scholars abroad. (See the works by Fritsch, Gutzwiller, Keister, Lee, Olafsson.)’
Torsten Olafsson has contributed as a versatile studio musician to at least 40 Danish music albums; as a professional graphic artist created more than 60 music album cover designs; transcribed, music engraved, typeset and layouted well over 1.300 Danish pop, rock, jazz, folk & instrumental guitar music pieces and, since 1980, in his capacity as music editor and publishing company music editor and print manager, produced several hundred sheet music and music book titles.
Torsten is currently – beside his various shakuhachi activities – working closely with his younger brother, internationally renowned guitarist Finn Olafsson, OIafssongs Music Publishers DK, as a studio and concert musician, music editor, graphics designer, photographer, and webmaster.
Antonio Enzan Olías - アントニオ · 炎山 · オリアス
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu Chikumeisha, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan,
Tozan, Fukeshu Shakuhachi, Gendai Hogaku “Japanese Contemporary Music”.
Teachers’ teacher: Tanaka Komei, Teruhisa Fukuda, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi,
Kuniyoshi Sugawara, Tanabe Shozan, Katoh Hidekazu, Anne Norman
Languages: Spanish, English
Teaching Locations: Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: –
Email: antonio.enzan@gmail.com
Biography: Antonio Enzan took up the shakuhachi in 2001 whilst he was living in Melbourne Australia and he started lessons with Anne Norman. In 2005 he was awarded with the Gen Foundation Grant and the AIE Grant to further his shakuhachi studies in Japan.
He received instruction under the direction of the best shakuhachi masters. In classic styles he studied with Tanaka Komei, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi. Modern and Contemporary music with Teruhisa Fukuda, Kuniyoshi Sugawara and Tanabe Shôzan.
In 2011 Etsuzan Fujiyoshi sensei awarded him with the professional name Saiho Enzan ·西方炎山· that means Fire Mountain from the West. In 2014 Teruhisa Fukuda awarded him with the Shakuhachi Dai Shihan “Grand Shakuhachi Master” license.
He has performed in Japan, Egypt, India, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Belgium and widely in Spain. He recorded his first album “Encuentros” in 2007 in Japan. He has collaborated with the especialist in Medieval Music Eduardo Paniagua recording the album “Cantigas de Nuestro Señor” performing Medieval Music Composed by Alphonse X The Wise. He has recently collaborated in the album of Erwin Grafe “Canciones Incrustables”.
Ôno Ranzan
Schools/styles taught: Fuke Shakuhachi (from different branches and temples),
Hitoyogiri flute, Shinobiryû Shakuhachi (Ninja’s Shakuhachi)
Teacher’s teacher: Fujiyoshi Etsuzan
Languages: French, English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.fuke-shakuhachi.com
Email: ranzan88@gmail.com
Biography: An expert in different martial arts he is practicing since his childhood, Ôno Ranzan is the first and only non-Japanese who has received the
title of Zen Grand Master of the Fuke-shû Shakuhachi (普化宗尺八看主). He raises awareness of the Shakuhachi of the orthodox school by performing recitals and lectures and is teaching his art in Japan and Europe.
Perfectly bilingual in Japanese, he is also carrying out researches on the history of the Fuke Shakuhachi, and has published a thesis about the Great Fuke Sect, its history, philosophy, and musical principals.
At the same time, he is making Jinashi Shakuhachi and Hitoyogiri flutes following old and traditional methods. Besides Shakuhachi, Ôno Ranzan is also a renown player of Hitoyogiri.
UnRyū
Schools/styles taught: Myōan
Teacher’s teacher: Ejun Lechika
Languages: Russian
Teaching Locations: Kiev, Ukraine
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.kiev.ua
Email: vladimirlazutkin.wind@yandex.ua
Biography: I practice playing the shakuhachi in the style of Myōan. My teacher is Ejun Lechika. Ejun Lechika Rinzai Zen monk is a certified teacher of the Meian (Myoan). When he was teaching me to play shakuhachi, he told me that a real komusō must create his own flute with his own hands. And the time came where I began to make shakuhachi listening to his advice.
I have performed with my flutes on the Religious festivals in the Conservatoire. I play honkyoku, I say a prayer so that my flute can open its heart to a person listening to it or practising it.
My buddhist name is Un Ryuu (雲龍). This name was given to me by my teacher when he was giving me rakusu.
Also, I have permission from my teacher to teach. I live in the city of Kiev in Ukraine.
Justin Senryu Williams
Schools/styles taught: Honkyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha, Seien Ryu
(Fudaiji temple), Chikushinkai (a.k.a. Dokyoku), Kimpu Ryu (a.k.a. Nezasa Ha), Myoan Shimpo Ryu, Myoan Taizan Ryu, Oshu Kei, Echigo Myoan, Kyushu Kei
Sankyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha
Teacher’s teacher: Araki Kodo V, Yokoyama Katsuya, Furuya Teruo, Iwata Seien VI, Otsubo Shido, Fujiyoshi Etsuzan, Takahashi Rochiku, Sato Jokan, Kurahashi Yodo II, Michael Coxall, Kanda Kayu
Languages: English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: London, England
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.senryushakuhachi.com
Email: Please see www.senryushakuhachi.com
Biography: Justin Senryu lived in Japan from 2005 undertaking 6 years of intensive shakuhachi study from the top masters of each Edo period honkyoku lineage. His teachers include:
• Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya (head of Chikushinkai) from whom he received his first Shihan (Master’s license), and the name ‘Senryu’ as both a professional player and maker in 2007.
• The Grandmaster of Kinko Ryu, Araki Kodo V, from whom he received his second Shihan, and the prestigious makers’ stamp ‘Kodo-sen’ (‘chosen by Kodo’) for his shakuhachi making.
• The Seien Ryu iemoto Iwata Seien VI, who authorised him to teach.
• The oldest Kyoto lineage of Shimpo Ryu; Kimpu Ryu and others from Otsubo Shido, who requested Justin to continue and propagate these precious lineages.
• Various rare lineages from other teachers.
Justin has performed, taught workshops and given lectures across Europe and Asia. He specialises in historic regional styles, having studied and researched in depth every extant Koten Honkyoku style. Justin also studied and practiced Buddhism for 17 years primarily in monasteries in India, Nepal and Thailand. He moved to Europe in 2011, and gives shakuhachi lessons and also Buddhist Psychotherapy in London, and teaches internationally via Skype.
SANKYOKU
Christopher Yohmei Blasdel
Schools/styles taught: Kinko (honkyoku, sankyoku),
Myôan, contemporary, improvisation
Teacher’s teacher: YAMAGUCHI Goro, OKAMOTO Chikugai, FUJII Kunie
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Tokyo, world wide
Skype lessons: No
Address/website: www.yohmei.com
Email: yohmei@gol.com
Biography: Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began the shakuhachi and studies of Japanese music in 1972 with Living National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi. He also studied Fuke shakuhachi under Okamoto Chikugai, jiuta ensemble playing with Fujii Kunie and ryûteki flute under Shiba Sukeyasu. In 1982 he received an MFA in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and is one of only two non-Japanese to be accredited as a shihan master by Yamaguchi. Performing in Japan and around the world, Blasdel maintains a balance between traditional shakuhachi music, modern compositions and cross-genre work with musicians, dancers, poets and visual artists.
Discography includes Navarasa (2009), Breath Play (2007), Visionary Tones (2005) and several other CDs of traditional and contemporary music. He has composed and performed music for NHK documentaries and various films. He co-organized the World Shakuhachi Festival ’98 held in Boulder, Colorado and the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival in 2008. He is the senior advisor to the annual Prague Shakuhachi Festival. His semi-autobiographical book, The Single Tone—A Personal Journey through Shakuhachi Music (Printed Matter Press, 2005) and The Shakuhachi, A Manual for Learning (1988) are two of the most important English language resource books on the shakuhachi.
He presently teaches Japanese music at Temple University in Tokyo and is coordinator/mentor for the Columbia University Hôgaku Program. He holds a third-degree black belt in Aikido.
Michael Soumei Coxall
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryu honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Goro
Languages: English, Japanese.
Teaching locations: Oxford, England.
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: Soumei Shakuhachi
Email: mc9@soas.ac.uk
Biography: Michael Soumei Coxall studied shakuhachi in Japan for many years under the legendary Kinko-ryu master and Living Cultural Treasure, the late Yamaguchi Goro, and still continues his studies on frequent visits to Japan with Mizuno Kohmei and Sugawara Kuniyoshi. Michael was awarded his shakuhachi ‘Master’s Licence’ in 2007 and the professional name ‘Soumei’.
Michael taught full time at SOAS, University of London, from 1986 to 2009 and now teaches traditional solo honkyoku, sankyoku ensemble and shinkyoku music at his home near Oxford, UK, as well as at workshops in London. He has performed widely in the UK and is the founder member of the ‘London Hogaku Ensemble’ and the groups ‘Hibiki’ and ‘Ten’yu’, has featured in numerous solo and ensemble performances and as an accompanist in recitals with visiting traditional Japanese performers in the UK and in concerts in Japan.
Michael was the co-organiser of the European Shakuhachi Summer Schools with Koto and Shamisen held in London in 2006, 2007 and 2011 and is also a member of the Chikumeisha-kai.
Gunnar Jinmei Linder
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Gorō
Languages: Swedish, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Sweden and Scandinavia
Skype lessons: gunnar_linder_in_tokyo
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.biz
Kallangsvagen 7, 2 tr, S-181 43 Lidingo
Telephone: +46 (0)8 731 04 61
Mobile: +46 (0)708 32 33 14
Email: shakuhachi.biz@mac.com
Biography: Gunnar Linder started to learn shakuhachi after arriving in Japan in 1985. He studied with Yamaguchi Gorō (Kinko-ryū, Chikumeisha) from 1985 from whom he received his shakuhachi Shihan (Chikumeisha Kinko-ryu Master’s Licence) and continued his studies in Japan until 2005. He is on the Council of Chikumeisha (chikumeisha hyōgi-in). Gunnar now lives and teaches in Stockholm, Sweden
* Head of Chikumeisha European Branch; keiko-ba in Stockholm.
* Head of Chikumeisha. Tachikawa Branch.
* Member of Kinko-ryū Kyōkai, Nihon Sankyoku Kyōkai, Komusō Kenkyūkai.
* Ph.D. in Japanology: Stockholm University.
* M.A. in Shakuhachi as Performing Art: Tokyo Geijutsu Daigaku.
* B.A. in Japanology and Philosophy. Main genres: kinko-ryū honkyoku, sankyoku (jiuta-sōkyoku), improvisation.
Suizan J.-F. Lagrost (ラグロ水山)
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū, KSK, Contemporary, Sankyoku and Shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Sōzan Kariya (Shin Tozan-Ryū), Véronique Piron (KSK)
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.flute-shakuhachi.com
Email: lagrost@flute-shakuhachi.com
Biography: Suizan J.-F. Lagrost is professor of art education at the Conservatories of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre and Asnières near Paris. As a versatile musician, he excels in both the Western and Japanese musics. After a traditional curriculum of concert flute in Mulhouse and Paris, then a DEA of Music of the 20th century at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he began the shakuhachi in 2000 (Tozan style) and obtained in 2014 the title of Dai-Shihan (grand master).
The diversity of his expertise conducts him to appear in a variety of backgrounds : the Ensemble de flûtes de Paris, flute & piano recitals in Taiwan, as a soloist with the Musique de la Garde républicaine, as well as Summer Schools and Festivals of shakuhachi in Europe (Barcelona, Prague, etc.)
He published in 2013 a Japanese chamber music CD entitled “Kyoku” with the koto player Mieko Miyazaki.
As a Senior Advisor of the European Shakuhachi Society, he has founded and administered since 2011 the world’s main forum of shakuhachi (www.shakuhachiforum.eu).
Véronique Piron
Schools/styles taught: KSK, traditional and modern styles
Teacher’s teacher: : Katsuya YOKOYAMA, Teruo FURUYA, Yoshikazu IWAMOTO
Languages: French, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: France (Paris and Bretagne), Belgium (Brussels)
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.veroniquepiron.com (français) / www.veroniquepiron.com/en (english)
Email: nipponflutes@gmail.com
Biography: Véronique Piron is a French flautist and a shakuhachi player. She received her shakuhachi Master’s Licence Shihan from Yokoyama Katsuya in 2002 while awarded a Lavoisier research grant from the French government for studying in Japan. She has participated in the creation of the ESS, being an officer until 2012, and the development of the shakuhachi in Europe. In Japan, she also learned nohkan and shinobue from Nishikawa Kohei of the Ensemble Pro-Nipponia, which lead her later to get a French State Diploma and a Professor’s licence, for teaching Japanese traditional music in the French conservatorium system. Based in West of France (Bretagne), she is produced by “Big Bravo Spectacles -production” in a Japanese music programme and in a creative music programme. She has recorded several shakuhachi CD’s.
Justin Senryu Williams
Schools/styles taught: Honkyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha, Seien Ryu
(Fudaiji temple), Chikushinkai (a.k.a. Dokyoku), Kimpu Ryu (a.k.a. Nezasa Ha), Myoan Shimpo Ryu, Myoan Taizan Ryu, Oshu Kei, Echigo Myoan, Kyushu Kei
Sankyoku: Kinko Ryu, Araki Ha
Teacher’s teacher: Araki Kodo V, Yokoyama Katsuya, Furuya Teruo, Iwata Seien VI, Otsubo Shido, Fujiyoshi Etsuzan, Takahashi Rochiku, Sato Jokan, Kurahashi Yodo II, Michael Coxall, Kanda Kayu
Languages: English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: London, England
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.senryushakuhachi.com
Email: Please see www.senryushakuhachi.com
Biography: Justin Senryu lived in Japan from 2005 undertaking 6 years of intensive shakuhachi study from the top masters of each Edo period honkyoku lineage. His teachers include:
• Furuya Teruo and Yokoyama Katsuya (head of Chikushinkai) from whom he received his first Shihan (Master’s license), and the name ‘Senryu’ as both a professional player and maker in 2007.
• The Grandmaster of Kinko Ryu, Araki Kodo V, from whom he received his second Shihan, and the prestigious makers’ stamp ‘Kodo-sen’ (‘chosen by Kodo’) for his shakuhachi making.
• The Seien Ryu iemoto Iwata Seien VI, who authorised him to teach.
• The oldest Kyoto lineage of Shimpo Ryu; Kimpu Ryu and others from Otsubo Shido, who requested Justin to continue and propagate these precious lineages.
• Various rare lineages from other teachers.
Justin has performed, taught workshops and given lectures across Europe and Asia. He specialises in historic regional styles, having studied and researched in depth every extant Koten Honkyoku style. Justin also studied and practiced Buddhism for 17 years primarily in monasteries in India, Nepal and Thailand. He moved to Europe in 2011, and gives shakuhachi lessons and also Buddhist Psychotherapy in London, and teaches internationally via Skype.
SHINKYOKU
Michael Soumei Coxall
Schools/styles taught: Kinko-ryu honkyoku, sankyoku and shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Yamaguchi Goro
Languages: English, Japanese.
Teaching locations: Oxford, England.
Skype lessons: Yes
Website: Soumei Shakuhachi
Email: mc9@soas.ac.uk
Biography: Michael Soumei Coxall studied shakuhachi in Japan for many years under the legendary Kinko-ryu master and Living Cultural Treasure, the late Yamaguchi Goro, and still continues his studies on frequent visits to Japan with Mizuno Kohmei and Sugawara Kuniyoshi. Michael was awarded his shakuhachi ‘Master’s Licence’ in 2007 and the professional name ‘Soumei’.
Michael taught full time at SOAS, University of London, from 1986 to 2009 and now teaches traditional solo honkyoku, sankyoku ensemble and shinkyoku music at his home near Oxford, UK, as well as at workshops in London. He has performed widely in the UK and is the founder member of the ‘London Hogaku Ensemble’ and the groups ‘Hibiki’ and ‘Ten’yu’, has featured in numerous solo and ensemble performances and as an accompanist in recitals with visiting traditional Japanese performers in the UK and in concerts in Japan.
Michael was the co-organiser of the European Shakuhachi Summer Schools with Koto and Shamisen held in London in 2006, 2007 and 2011 and is also a member of the Chikumeisha-kai.
Suizan J.-F. Lagrost (ラグロ水山)
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū, KSK, Contemporary, Sankyoku and Shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Sōzan Kariya (Shin Tozan-Ryū), Véronique Piron (KSK)
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.flute-shakuhachi.com
Email: lagrost@flute-shakuhachi.com
Biography: Suizan J.-F. Lagrost is professor of art education at the Conservatories of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre and Asnières near Paris. As a versatile musician, he excels in both the Western and Japanese musics. After a traditional curriculum of concert flute in Mulhouse and Paris, then a DEA of Music of the 20th century at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he began the shakuhachi in 2000 (Tozan style) and obtained in 2014 the title of Dai-Shihan (grand master).
The diversity of his expertise conducts him to appear in a variety of backgrounds : the Ensemble de flûtes de Paris, flute & piano recitals in Taiwan, as a soloist with the Musique de la Garde républicaine, as well as Summer Schools and Festivals of shakuhachi in Europe (Barcelona, Prague, etc.)
He published in 2013 a Japanese chamber music CD entitled “Kyoku” with the koto player Mieko Miyazaki.
As a Senior Advisor of the European Shakuhachi Society, he has founded and administered since 2011 the world’s main forum of shakuhachi (www.shakuhachiforum.eu).
Véronique Piron
Schools/styles taught: KSK, traditional and modern styles
Teacher’s teacher: : Katsuya YOKOYAMA, Teruo FURUYA, Yoshikazu IWAMOTO
Languages: French, English and Japanese
Teaching Locations: France (Paris and Bretagne), Belgium (Brussels)
Skype lessons: yes
Address/website: www.veroniquepiron.com (français) / www.veroniquepiron.com/en (english)
Email: nipponflutes@gmail.com
Biography: Véronique Piron is a French flautist and a shakuhachi player. She received her shakuhachi Master’s Licence Shihan from Yokoyama Katsuya in 2002 while awarded a Lavoisier research grant from the French government for studying in Japan. She has participated in the creation of the ESS, being an officer until 2012, and the development of the shakuhachi in Europe. In Japan, she also learned nohkan and shinobue from Nishikawa Kohei of the Ensemble Pro-Nipponia, which lead her later to get a French State Diploma and a Professor’s licence, for teaching Japanese traditional music in the French conservatorium system. Based in West of France (Bretagne), she is produced by “Big Bravo Spectacles -production” in a Japanese music programme and in a creative music programme. She has recorded several shakuhachi CD’s.
SEIEN RYU
Jon Kypros
Schools/styles taught: Fudaiji Seien Ryu and Myoan Taizan Ha versions, Kinpu Ryu, Myoan Shinpo Ryu, Oshu kei, Echigo Myoanji Den, Kyushu kei, Jin Nyodo kei, and Chikushinkai.
Teacher’s teacher: Justin Senryu Williams, Ronnie Nyogetsu Reishin Seldin, Kurahashi Yodo II
Languages: English and learning French
Teaching Locations: Toulouse, France; Online
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: https://josenshakuhachi.com
Email: flutedojo@gmail.com
Biography: It’s been my great joy to be a full-time shakuhachi teacher and craftsperson for over twenty years and counting. I hold the title of Dai Shihan or ‘Grandmaster’ of the shakuhachi school Senryu Kai, given to me by Justin Senryu Williams. I practice Zen Buddhism, both of which I will cultivate for the rest of my life. (You might be familiar with my previous works, The Bell Shakuhachi and my book, Your Shakuhachi Journey.)
TOZAN-RYU
Robin Eve/Iburozan
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan Ryu
Teachers’ teacher: Nakamura Seizan
Languages: English, Japanese
Teaching Locations: Bristol, UK; Kobe, Japan
Skype lessons: No
Email: iburozan@gmail.com
Biography: Robin Eve, artistic name, Iburozan, trained as a horn player, then started playing shakuhachi in 1972. Since living full time in Japan from 1989, he has been active in traditional music playing, and also diversifying into western music, classical, jazz folk, etc.
Obtained teacher’s (shihan) licence in 1997, and ‘grand-master’(daishihan) licence in 2001.Won honkyoku contests in 1996, 1998, and 2003, at three different grades.
He performs regularly, sankyoku, etc, and teaches. He also arranges and composes music for shakuhachi, and other instruments. Particularly interested in ensemble music for shakuhachi groups, such as Nakao Tozan compositions.
In 2015 was invited to perform solo at the Moon Festival at World Heritage Site Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto. In 2016 he was an examiner for the practical exams of the Shin Tozan Ryu.
Christophe «Kazan» (歌山) Gaston
School: Shin Tozan Ryû (also trained in Kinko Ryû chikumeisha style)
Teacher: Sôzan Chiaki Kariya, Gunnar Jinmei Linder
Languages: French, English
Teaching Location: South Paris (Montlhéry)
Skype lessons: Yes
Email: christophe.gaston09@gmail.com
Biography: Christophe «Kazan» (歌山) Gaston is a shihan of the Shin-Tozan Ryû. He learnt shakuhachi under the guidance of Sôzan Chiaki Kariya, chair person of the french branch. He also studies the Kinko Ryû repertoire in the style of Yamaguchi Goro (Chikumeisha) with Gunnar Jinmei Linder. Besides his interest in all forms of honkyokus he regularly performs with the koto player Akari Sagara and with jazz and contemporary musicians. He is the contact person of the Chikumeisha french lesson center in France and the main organizer of the workshop series driven by Gunnar Linder in France.
Philip Horan
Schools/styles taught:
Teacher’s teacher:
Languages:
Teaching Locations:
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.shakuhachizen.com
Email: phil@shakuhachizen.com
Biography: Philip Horan spent two years in Japan, studying the repertoire of the Tozan-ryu in Hiroshima. He studied shakuhachi with Sunny Yeung (Hong Kong), Hanaoka Seizan (Hiroshima), Kiku Day and Jean-François Lagrost.
He completed a Masters in Ethnomusicology at the Irish World Music Centre in Limerick, focusing on shakuhachi acoustics and aesthetics. He regularly performs Irish and Celtic musics on shakuhachi.
Sôzan C. Kariya
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū
Teacher’s teacher: Kariya Haruki
Languages: Japanese, French and English
Teaching Locations: Paris, France
Skype lessons:
Address/website: www.shintozanryu-france.com
Email: sozanc.kariya@dbmail.com
Biography: Sôzan Chiaki Kariya est né 1950 à Hyogo, prés d’Osaka. Il commence à étudier le shakuhachi à l’âge de 13 ans avec son père, conseiller de Shin Tozan Ryû, élève de Ichizan Hoshida, 1er et fondateur de la branche Singensha de l’école Ikuta de koto. Il acquiert le titre de Grand Maitre (daishihan) de shakuhachi et nommé le représentant de l’école Shin Tozan Ryû en France.
Il a également appris le violoncelle au conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris avec Maurice Gendron et Jacqueline Heuclin. Il a reçu le 1er prix d’honneur au concours international de l’U.F.A.M. de Paris et 1er prix de concours Bellan au violoncelle en 1975 et nommé à membre du jury du concours U.F.A.M. en 1976. Il était un de membre sociétaire de l’orchestre symphonique de concert pasdeloup.
Sôzan Kariya a beaucoup d’activitès musicale en France, en Belgique, au Japon, en Allemagne et en Angleterre. Il a notamment eu un grand succès au festival Womad de Londres pour son shakuhachi solo. On a pu le voir sur TF1, sur france 3, concert de shakuhachi au Musée Guimet avec Mr Iwamoto et soliste pour l’orchestre symphonique de musique comtemporaine. Plusieurs CD sont sorti. Outre son activité de concertiste, Sôzan Kariya est professeur de shakuhachi et de violoncelle à l’école de musique SNCF de Paris et membre de la SACEM.
Suizan J.-F. Lagrost (ラグロ水山)
Schools/styles taught: Shin Tozan-Ryū, KSK, Contemporary, Sankyoku and Shinkyoku
Teacher’s teacher: Sōzan Kariya (Shin Tozan-Ryū), Véronique Piron (KSK)
Languages: French, English
Teaching Locations: Paris
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.flute-shakuhachi.com
Email: lagrost@flute-shakuhachi.com
Biography: Suizan J.-F. Lagrost is professor of art education at the Conservatories of Le Kremlin-Bicêtre and Asnières near Paris. As a versatile musician, he excels in both the Western and Japanese musics. After a traditional curriculum of concert flute in Mulhouse and Paris, then a DEA of Music of the 20th century at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, he began the shakuhachi in 2000 (Tozan style) and obtained in 2014 the title of Dai-Shihan (grand master).
The diversity of his expertise conducts him to appear in a variety of backgrounds : the Ensemble de flûtes de Paris, flute & piano recitals in Taiwan, as a soloist with the Musique de la Garde républicaine, as well as Summer Schools and Festivals of shakuhachi in Europe (Barcelona, Prague, etc.)
He published in 2013 a Japanese chamber music CD entitled “Kyoku” with the koto player Mieko Miyazaki.
As a Senior Advisor of the European Shakuhachi Society, he has founded and administered since 2011 the world’s main forum of shakuhachi (www.shakuhachiforum.eu).
Antonio Enzan Olías - アントニオ · 炎山 · オリアス
Schools/styles taught: Kinko Ryu Chikumeisha, Kokusai Shakuhachi Kenshukan,
Tozan, Fukeshu Shakuhachi, Gendai Hogaku “Japanese Contemporary Music”.
Teachers’ teacher: Tanaka Komei, Teruhisa Fukuda, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi,
Kuniyoshi Sugawara, Tanabe Shozan, Katoh Hidekazu, Anne Norman
Languages: Spanish, English
Teaching Locations: Spain
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: –
Email: antonio.enzan@gmail.com
Biography: Antonio Enzan took up the shakuhachi in 2001 whilst he was living in Melbourne Australia and he started lessons with Anne Norman. In 2005 he was awarded with the Gen Foundation Grant and the AIE Grant to further his shakuhachi studies in Japan.
He received instruction under the direction of the best shakuhachi masters. In classic styles he studied with Tanaka Komei, Etsuzan Fujiyoshi. Modern and Contemporary music with Teruhisa Fukuda, Kuniyoshi Sugawara and Tanabe Shôzan.
In 2011 Etsuzan Fujiyoshi sensei awarded him with the professional name Saiho Enzan ·西方炎山· that means Fire Mountain from the West. In 2014 Teruhisa Fukuda awarded him with the Shakuhachi Dai Shihan “Grand Shakuhachi Master” license.
He has performed in Japan, Egypt, India, France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Belgium and widely in Spain. He recorded his first album “Encuentros” in 2007 in Japan. He has collaborated with the especialist in Medieval Music Eduardo Paniagua recording the album “Cantigas de Nuestro Señor” performing Medieval Music Composed by Alphonse X The Wise. He has recently collaborated in the album of Erwin Grafe “Canciones Incrustables”.
ZENSABO
Kiku Day
Schools/styles taught: Zensabō, contemporary music, min’yō, improvisation and meditation and shakuhachi
Teacher’s teacher: Okuda Atsuya
Languages: Danish, English, French and Japanese
Teaching Locations: Denmark
Skype lessons: Yes
Address/website: www.kikuday.com
Email: kikuday@gmail.com
Biography:
Kiku Day (PhD, London; MFA, Mills; BA, London) is a jinashi shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist.
Dr Day trained shakuhachi playing with Okuda Atsuya for more than a decade in Japan and since her return to Europe has dedicated her life to the dissemination of the shakuhachi on that continent. She is a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society, which she currently serves as chairperson. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith and Joanna MacGregor and as a soloist with the Nonsuch Choir and with Odense Symphony Orchestra in Takemitsu Tōru’s November Steps. Day is always exploring new possibilities with the shakuhachi in unconventional collaborations such as dance, narrative performance and film.
Her research has been mainly performance based and focused in particular on the potential use of the jinashi shakuhach in contemporary performance. Her teaching spans from the repertoire of Zensabō to shakuhachi and meditation and improvisation. Her aim is to help disseminate the knowledge and love for the shakuhachi. Her love of teaching shakuhachi has been noticed by many of her students.
Day is presently living at the meditation centre, Vækstcenteret in Nørre Snede, Denmark.
Sergey Maksymenko
Schools/styles taught: Zensabo style Honkyoku
Teacher’s teacher Kiku Day
Languages: Russian, Ukrainian, English
Teaching Locations: Kiev, Ukraine
Skype lessons: sernamaksy
Address/website: www.shakuhachi.com.ua
https://www.facebook.com/bamboolaboratory
Email: hachigaeshi@gmail.com
Biography: The first time I heard the shakuhachi in 2000, on a CD. This was the beginning, Honshirabe by Kohachiro Miyata. Later, an incredible sound of Tamuke, by Riley Lee prompted me to start the search an instrument. I’m interested in what makes a tool for these beautiful and sad sounds.
The first steps in studying of shakuhachi I started to make by myself, as in Ukraine, no teachers. I was helped by friends such as enthusiastic as I am. Then I started taking lessons from the masters in Skype. I took a few lessons from Kaoru Kakizakai, Michael Chikuzen Gould. I met with Kiku Day in 2008 in Kiev, and in 2010 after the European Shakuhachi Festival in Prague became her student. In 2012 I took part in WSF in Kyoto. In Tokyo I studied with Okuda Atsuya. Now I continue to learn Zensabo repertoire under Kiku’s leadership, and teach beginners in Kiev and Ukraine.
I have a project “MA”. This is improvised music of shakuhachi, singing bowls, tanpura. In 2013 our album “Guide” was released.