Collage of the players, who participated in the 12-hour World Shakuhachi Day online meeting. A few might be missing. I apologise for that. What a great and diverse day it was! Next year on October 8, 2024, we are planning a 24-hour online meeting on World Shakuhachi Day.
I have for more than 30 years only had newly made jinashi shakuhachi and the jinashi made by myself. It has been very interesting to include in my collection 2 Edo-period shakuhachi (the two in the middle), the 2.5 Sakurai Muteki (my all time favourite) and the flute in the front from Dainihon chikudō gakkan by Kaneyasu Dōdō (this is mostly a research interest). I herewith declare, that I have enough flutes for the rest of my life.Thank you with gratitude to Genshin Naoyuki Sakai, Eric Genpu Strong, Riley Lee and Itamar Foguel, and Trần Cao – those involved in enabling me to get these flutes! 
I only had a few belongings left. But now with no more room on my own, I pulled the last bit out. The luggage is my long no-fingerhole bamboo flutes + shakuhachi, my duvet, wintercoats, blankets + shamisen.
Like last year, we had again a 12-hour online shakuhachi gathering. We all played 108 robuki at 10:08 JST and 22:08 JSP – phraming the 12 hours and Tanaka Takafumi’s talk on “shakuhachi of the world” and the about 70 people, who played 10 minutes for the community and for world peace. We certainly connected very well together. We have a wonderful community!
The first WSMD went really well – with all the glitches there will always be. The new up-coming teachers did a great job and they (hopefully) got constructive feedback and an experience they can build on in the future.
This past few days, a student, friend and shakuhachi colleague of mine visit me with his wife. It was such a great time! All the way from NYC!
Shakuhachi players, you are all cordially invited to participate in 2 events related to WORLD SHAKUHACHI DAY (WSD): We have WSD on October 8th and WORLD SHAKUHACHI MENTORING DAY (WSMD) on October 1st!1)
On October 8th we will have World Shakuhachi Day itself where there will be a 12-hour online shakuhachi gathering from 10:00 to 22:00 JST with a robuki for everybody together – both in the beginning and at the end. After the morning robuki we will have a talk by Tanaka Takafumi (chief editor of Hogaku Journal), then we have people from all over the world playing 10 minute slots each for almost 12 hours!
It will be a shakuhachi feast and a manifestation of our wonderful community! There are professional players as well as people who started to play recently. It is for everybody!
The preliminary programme is up on the website: http://worldshakuhachiday.com/wsd-2023/2)
On October 1st, the WORLD SHAKUHACHI MENTORING DAY will take place for the first time! On this day, 4 upcoming new shakuhachi teachers will do a session of online group teaching.
The teachers are: Trần Cao, Nikita Chasovnikov, Ramon Humet, Lokesha Haber.There will be a panel of experienced teachers, who will give them feedback and advice and also the participants can give them feedback.
This event is created with the purpose of giving new teachers a chance to get some experience of online group teaching and receive constructive advice.If you want to learn with one or several of these teachers, please email: kikuday@gmail.com in order to get the score etc. Otherwise you an also just join and listen and play along muted.
You can read about WSMD here:http://worldshakuhachiday.com/wsmd/You are all welcome to join both events at any time during the time it is happening. Remember to mute yourself unless you are going to play or say something.
The Zoom link will be:Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85854874675
Meeting ID: 858 5487 4675
Passcode: 345123
We had a filming session with the trio of Sound of Antiquity with Anders Børup (voice) and Ying-Hsueh Chen (perc). The other two in the group are Eva Fock (idea person behind the project who makes workshops and Ingeborg Okkels, who are working in sound and there does workshops too. We were helped by Mikkel Arnfred, who filmed. photo by Eva!
The amazing percussionist Ying-Hsueh Chen is also organising concerts in her unique space Bådehuset, Refshaleøen in Copenhagen. Very boheme! We had an autumn harvest concert using materials that was in use in antiquity – but with a plant focus. We also used some ceramics and stones and bones. Anne Eisen Eisensee is a fantastic singer focusing especially on various folk singing traditions. She sang some wonderful songs from the Norwegian and Swedish folk singing traditions. This time we were joined by Jens Kloster, who has been a bassoon player in symphony orchestras. He has been playing a lot of lurs and he played both on a bronze lur and a bark lurs. I played on a new acquisition – an overtone flute made in elder wood by Aksel Stream and a bark flute with a shakuhachi mouth piece made by Otto Eskelinen. I played on stone and bone flutes too.
It was a wonderful experience! Thank you to all of you who came and to Ying-Hsueh for organising. And thank you to to Eva Fock, who had a workshop afterwards where the audience could make their own instruments, for the photos!
