We (Klange fra Stenalderen – Sounds of Stone Age) with Anders Børup and Ying-Hsueh Chen played 4 school concerts from LMS (Levende musik i Skolen – Live Music in Schools).

I was so lucky to be a students of Dr David W Hughes. He was my teacher during my BA study in ethnomusicololgy and later on he was my PhD supervisor (togetehr with Keith Howard). David was first and foremost an Expert in min’yō or Japanese folk song but also other Japanese, East Asian and Indonesian musics. He was a great scholar but he was also such a great musician. I Learned so much from him not only academically but also as a musician and as a human being. The most amazing thing was I also became a friend of him and his wife Gina Barnes, who is a great archaeologist. Last week I was in a group of friends, who scattered his ashes in Thames River in a place where I have stood with him and Gina many times. I was very touching and I am so grateful to have been able to do this. I also played Tamuke for his at the river.

We had burger and milkshake in David’s memory

The next day, we celebrated David’s life at SOAS, University of London with lots of music

I played an improvisation with Flavia Huarachi at Råhuset.

I went to play with koto/shamisen players Shimonoto Ayumi and Sakura Yuka. In Finland we were among others Otto Eskelinen and Aaro Haravisto:

I also went on a wonderful road trip with Adam Conway. Here we are in his home in Chicago with Jeff Nytes and Dean Delbene. I really enjoyed that trip!

I organised a concert with the trio I called the Argilla-Lapis Trio. We were Eva Fock, Ying-Hsueh Chen and myself. See an excerpt from the concert:

I was so lucky to be invited to play at Regan West – a Cold War Museum. I played for Ambassador of Japan in Denmark Uyama Hideki and the Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Torsten Schack Pedersen among many other people. I was luck I got onto the news of the national Danish Broadcasting corporation Danmarks Radio – but in the spirit of the komusō: completely anonymous:

Together with Eva Fock, I had 5 days in a ceramics workshop. We made all kinds of fun things – ALL ABOUT MUSIC!

Ancestral modernism is a concert series, art concept by Ying-Hsueh Chen – one of Denmark’s most innovative percussionists. We were Ying-Hsueh Chen, Eva Fock, Matt Choboter and Jan Kadereit. We played on natural stones, ceramics, tiles and slates.

This concert on 24 November 2024 was organised by Francis Moore. He really pulled it off so well. It was so well attended, we couldn’t believe it. It was organised like a whole festival surrounding the shakuhachi. I played with the amazing Taegum player Hyelim Kim. I first improvised solo, then she came on.
But before that we had a discussion moderated by Clive Bell with speakers Katsuya Nonaka, Shabaka Hutchings and myself. Katsuya Nonaka performed during the talk. We spoke about shakuhachi from many angles. We also watched the film The Future is Primitive by Nonaka Katsuya. Then Francis performed with a string player Zhuyang Leiu. Hyelim and I performed and then Shabaka Hutchings and Clive performed together with Endo Masumi , a freestyle dancer. It was an incredible evening. Thank you Francis. I was also happy to meet the composer Dai Fujikura.