On the 12th and 15th of June Anders Børup, Ying-Hsueh Chen and myself performed URTID, a sound walk concert by Laurits Jongejan. The idea person behind it all is Eva Fock. She and Ingeborg Okkels made instruments with a school class with materials that for most part would have existed in antiquity. They made shakers of bones and shells; simple pan flute made with branches of elder trees; and bullroarers made from wood (we had some in bones as well). Then the children joined us musicians in the sound walk. It was amazing to imagine how it might have sounded in the Stone Age. Probably very different….
I love working with these natural materials. They will certainly creep into my other projects! Thank you, Eva!

A few weeks ago I taught shakuhachi within the setting of a Zen Buddhist sesshin or retreat. It was held at Sogenji in Assendorf, Germany. It was a very interesting experience. It was not that simple to combine and very much hard work. I really appreciate the experience and also the people who participated – both in the shakuhachi part or the samu part. It gives me food for thought and I will adjust it when I will do something similar in Finland 12-13 August at Sanneji.

Thank you to the wonderful people who participated.

The repertoire of shakuhachi with koto and shamisen is not what I have been trained in. So I was a bit nervous. But it all went really well and we played all over Denmark!

I had a great time playing with Ying-Hsueh Chen, Anne Eisensee, Letty Stott with lots of materials provided by Eva Fock who did a wonderful workshop after the concert as well. Love my bone flutes. I am getting more familiar with them and I think myself they sound better and better.

I was interviewed by Nick Kemp, who has devoted his life to ikigai – after he had read my paper on shakuhachi and meditation.
I speak about what shakuhachi is for me and how it is my ikigai source.

https://ikigaitribe.com/podcasts/podcast53/

The event was a great success. We had almost as many participants as during a live event. Now we can’t wait till seeing everyone in person in DUBLIN FOR REAL ! ! ! 20-23 July 2023. I translated for Seian Genshin, the 42nd kansu of Myōan-ji. He taught Choshi and Koku in Fuke Myōan style. I also translated fro Tsujimoto Yoshimi, who taught us some popular songs. Adrian Freedman and Marco Lienhard’s teaching was great too!

Zensabo Ukraine had a little get-together with Okuda sensei. Everyone played for each other (I was just the facilitator). We also got to listen a lot to Okuda sensei. Shakuhachi and music connect us heart to heart – even during difficult times

On the 19th October 2022, Japan Research Centre, at SOAS, University of London together with the Music Department organised a Book Launch for the Festschrift of David Hughes. We had a great time with music, speeches etc.