Japanese Music Workshop: Performance Exploration for Shakuhachi, Koto, and Voice

Name: Japanese Music Workshop: Performance Exploration for Shakuhachi, Koto, and Voice
Start: 2025-09-19T17:00:00-04:00
Location: Britton Recital Hall

Schedule

Fri, 19 Sep, 2025 at 05:00 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Britton Recital Hall | Ann Arbor, MI

"Performance Exploration for Shakuhachi, Koto, and Voice"
David Kansuke Wheeler and Yoko Hiraoka
Please join us for a friendly experience of listening, beginning to play, and even singing with the Japanese shakuhachi (flute) and koto (zither), led by experts David Kansuke Wheeler and Yoko Hiraoka. Students and audience will learn about technique, notation, and play together simple songs; singers will be introduced to the phrasing and vocal style of jiuta music. A great opportunity for SMTD students; shakuhachis and kotos will be provided for musicians to try out themselves and with singers.
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Presented as part of a series: "A Celebration of Japanese Music and Dance: The Ethnomusicology Legacy of Professor William P. Malm." View the complete schedule at: https://myumi.ch/79rM5
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ABOUT THE GUEST ARTISTS
Musician and musicologist David Kansuke Wheeler spent twenty years in Japan studying and performing the shakuhachi with traditional masters and ensembles, beginning in Tokyo in 1977 under Kinko ryū master Junsuke Kawase III (Kansuke I). In 2008, in recognition of three decades of performing, producing, and teaching, he received the performance name Kansuke II. Wheeler has played a central role in every major world shakuhachi festival since 1994. In 1999, he co-founded the Shakuhachi Summer Camp of the Rockies, which held its 26th camp in June 2024. Now based in Boulder, he aims to cross musical and artistic barriers both within and outside of the Japanese traditional performing arts world.
Yoko Hiraoka is a senior master performer of koto (13-string zither), shamisen (3-string lute), biwa (4- or 5-string lute), and voice. Born in Kyoto, she studied Ikuta-ryū koto and shamisen music from an early age, earning the Dai-Shihan (Grand Master) title from Sōmei Ongaku-kai, Tokyo. She also studied Chikuzen biwa with Kōka Suga, a prominent leader of Kōmyōji-ryū and disciple of Yamazaki Kyokusui, the Living National Treasure. For over forty years, Ms. Hiraoka has performed, and lectured extensively on Japanese traditional music at leading universities, major festivals, on television and radio, and on studio recordings.
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Co-organized by: Center for Japanese Studies; Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments. Co-sponsorship from: School of Music, Theatre & Dance; International Institute; Kenneth G. Lieberthal and Richard H. Rogel Center for Chinese Studies; Nam Center for Korean Studies; Center for South Asian Studies; and Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
Sponsored in part by the William P. Malm Stearns Collection Concert Series & Instrument Preservation Fund and the Virginia Martin Howard Lecture Series Endowment.