Mujitsu and Tairaku's Shakuhachi BBQ

I am sure I speak for everyone on this forum who is not in Australia at this moment that the total lack of posts with news and reviews about the festival is quite dissapointing.

No photos?

No gossip?

No breathless first-hand accounts of shakuhachi celebrity sightings?

Anything?!?

Quite an amazing reverb in these empty halls.

It's not a sure thing yet, but it's possible that there will be production of a video DVD of WSF '08.

Fingers crossed...

Last edited by edosan (2008-07-07 12:50:11)

Brief Overview of the Festival.

Well, nobody has written any reviews yet. I'll give a brief overview of WSF '08 and leave comments about specific performances to the rank and file when they get back to their computers. This is not intended to be a formal review, just something to get the ball rolling.

Venues

Couldn't have been better! Sydney is one of the world's great cities. Weather was great most of the time. Sydney Conservatorium of Music and City Recital Hall are fantastic concert venues. A number of acoustically delightful venues were used at the Conservatorium ranging from intimate recital halls to a mid-sized venue complete with pipe organ. Workshops and lectures were held in classrooms and rehearsal rooms. The fact that everything was located in the same building made it (sometimes painfully) easy to flit between events. Large concerts were held at City Recital Hall, a short walk from the Conservatorium. Conservatorium is located in the Botanical Garden facilitating natural outings for the festival goers. We were about a 5 minute walk from the famous Sydney Opera House.

The Performers

Astounding. Everyone from Living National Treasures to enthusiasts from far flung corners of the globe were given the opportunity to demonstrate their music. I don't want to name names in this mini-review we'll leave that for follow up posts.

The Music

A vast selection ranging from very simple and ancient zen pieces to almost absurdly modern new compositions. I'll break my comments down into categories.

Honkyoku

The cornerstone of shakuhachi. Most but not all styles of honkyoku were represented. Most prominently the Yokoyama players were featured. Jin Nyodo style was amply represented. There were a number of exquisite Kinko performers. Tozan (actually the largest group of players in the world) had a number of great players, including the 17 year old girl who won the S-1 Grand Prix young performers contest. Chikuho was represented by both Japanese and Australian players. In a perfect world I would have liked to see more Myoan performers. Myoan music was mainly represented by people of other lineages which incorporate some Myoan pieces into their repertoires. Dearth of Myoan players was probably due to the fact that they are not commercial and do not like performing in public. However this issue will probably be dealt with at the next festival, you'll see why later in the post.

Sankyoku

Once again, amazing. Everything from the die hard jiuta and danmono pieces to early modern Japanese to ultra modern contemporary compositions by living composers (in some cases performing their own work) were represented. There was enough of this music at the festival to satisfy anybody even if it was their only interest. Much of it performed at the highest level.

Classical

By classical I mean 20th and 21st Century modern pieces coming out of the Western art tradition. Nobody wants to hear Beethoven or Strauss on the shakuhachi. Sometimes by Japanese composers with a Japanese bent, but still written in Western notation. The most aggressive curatorial stance of the festival was in the cultivation of new compositions. Frequently it was mentioned that their were 10 world premieres, but actually it was more than that when you counted the things happening in the smaller recital halls. Riley and co. seem to be dedicated to creating a new repertoire for the instrument which places it in the mainstream of the contemporary music scene. Some of these compositions were brilliant and challenging. Others were easy on the ears. Some were boring. But overall no complaints here because if they hadn't done this people would say they were playing it safe. This area was very thoughtfully curated and brought a lot of wonderful textures and (non-Japanese) instrumentation into the soundscape of the festival.

Jazz, Rock, Blues, Improv, World, Other

In contrast to the modern classical stuff, these genres were represented by a few individuals but not emphasized and not cohesively presented. It only happened if a performer decided to do something along these lines at one of the smaller anthology concerts. A wasted opportunity because there were enough top flight professionals in this area (here to do other things) to have presented a stellar concert. If anybody is likely to popularize shakuhachi in the future amongst the general public it will probably come from this direction. Hopefully future festivals will make a stronger effort in this area. Caveat, this is my field of interest, so I am biased, but I speak the truth.

Audiences 

Very attentive and appreciative. The smaller concerts were mainly attended by WSF participants, while the big concerts also had a decent amount of the general public. Still, we have yet to find a voice on our instrument (such as Ravi Shankar in Indian music) who can bring it to the attention of the masses.

Organizers, Staff and Volunteers 

Exhausted!

The Executive Committee (Artistic Director Riley Lee, plus Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, James Franklin, Teruo Furuya, Kaoru Kakizakai, Yoshio Kurahashi, Kazushi Matama, and David Kansuke Wheeler, ran the show with dignity and humor and (at least in open view) did not crack under the immense pressure. Australian Shakuhachi Society staff, volunteers and Conservatorium staff were very generous, kind and helpful throughout and deserve our debt of gratitude for making it such a pleasant experience.

Attendees 

Of course this was the group who made the whole thing worthwhile and were the raison d'etre for WSF '08. Everybody was great and friendly very few bummer scenes. It was particularly gratifying for me as Administrator of this forum to meet so many of the people who post here but previously were just names. Thanks to everyone who took the time to say hi to me, I appreciated it very much.

The Future 

Kurahashi Yoshio Sensei announced at the farewell dinner that he'll be throwing the next WSF in Kyoto in 2012. This is great news! And with Kyoto being the home of Myoanji and so much of shakuhachi history there it should be a fantastic festival. Even more great players will be there, because they can just get there on the train. Stay tuned.

Hi Brian.

Thanks for the update! I am sure it was fantastic! These things always are.
I was mighty jealous while it was going on... but I did get to write quite a few pages about shakuhachi, so I was doing my part far away!
Was min'yo shakuhachi present at all?
I am so pleased to hear that Kurahashi has taken on the task of organising the 2012 event in Kyoto. That's where we need the next to be!
Perhaps we can have the 2016 in Europe. An idea we can play with for some years in the European Shakuhachi Society and beyond!

Brian, that's an interesting point and I wonder if it's that way because shakuhachi in Japan isn't viewed as a common thread that binds all manner of players together in one tapestry.  It's not uncommon to get two different styles of players together in one concert:  generally  kinko and tozan,  but to get minyo or myoan as well would be a rarity.  In fact, in 22 years in my local setting, I've never seen it.  A minyo concert is a minyo concert and a kinko concert is a kinko concert. To the general ear and player, the two don't belong together.  The point I'm trying to get at is that without some unusual circumstance forcing such a joint situation, the more non-conventional players (minyo and myoan) might not consider themselves as being a part of the proceedings and wouldn't even think of attending.  That's what makes these festival situations potentially unique and let's hope that other streams are encouraged to attend and present.  I'm planning a small scale shakuhachi festival here in Kumamoto for next year in November and I fully intend to invite and have all manner of players represented.  I'll post more about this as things evolve.

OK Knuckleheads! I know a lot of you were at the festival because I read your name tags! Let's see some reviews!

rpowers wrote:

Tairaku wrote:

OK Knuckleheads! I know a lot of you were at the festival because I read your name tags! Let's see some reviews!

Many of us had to take longer flights across more time zones than you did, Your Holiness (Any chance of you jamming with Ben this week?).

I still can't see clearly enough to edit my photos.

Pope only jams with Horst because they were both in the Hitler Youth together. OUCH!

Hello there, sorry for the delay with writing about the festival.  It was pretty great! I was interviewing some players and the Living National Treasures etc., we're editing the videos and it should be in the DVD series they are producing about the festival. They have hours and gours of different concerts and workshops to edit, so everybody will have to relax for awhile and maybe hope to see it all by the end of the year.  But it will definately be worth seeing, there were some great performances...There were also some not so great ones, but I won't go there.
I was in the Young Players Competition and came in 2nd place wiht Yamagoe. I gave it all I had, but in the end the judges decided that Imoto Chouzan, a 17 year old female Tozan player and student of Yamamoto Hozan, was to be the winner. She performed a Hozan piece called Aki and had superb technique. Justin Senryu Williams came in 3rd place with a great performance of Tsuru no Sugomori on one of his handmade 1.6 flutes. Great neiro and tamane! He is making some great shakuhachi guys.  Bronwyn Kirkpatric also did great I thought with Asuka Reibo. We had a little run through the previous day so I heard some of the other performances, which were all really high level. Unforunately I cannot comment on any other performances because I was off in the private rooms practicing my Yamagoe up until I went on, which was one of the last pieces. Let me tell you, playing at a grand theater like Verrbrugen Hall is a very different experience than playing at home or even for small groups. I really think everyone should have this kind of experience/pressure, it really shows you what you actually know as opposed to what you think you know about your playing. Overall, I was satisfied with my performance, but it is definately not as good as when I'm at home practicing alone. It's a great wakeup call and motivator to study harder.
The people wanted to hear the top 3 finalists again so 2 days later we had to perform again in front of everyone. I felt I did  a little better and was more relaxed than the actual competition day. But I guess that's the nature of the game. Overall it was fun.  I think that this was probably the friendliest 'competition' in the world. Of course everyone wants to win, but I doubt competing and trying to be the 'best' was ever anyone's reason for getting involved this instrument.  It must have been difficult to judge all of these different genres of shakuhachi music and compare them to each other. But in the end it was all in good fun. Everyone on stage gave it there all and gave a great performance.

I would like to add my 2 cents as well.
Actually ,no disagreements with anything that has been said !
But in many ways the competition was a top highlight of the Festival for me!
When I was one of the preliminary judges  this past April, we listened to over 30 entries "Blind".But it doesn't compare with watching these young folks perform live and knock the ball out of the park. And the winner just turned 17 . She is a 2nd year high school student!
Amazing!

There were not that many "surprises" in the Festival, except perhaps Kurahashi Sensei's awesome rendition of "Shakedown" (Who 'da thunk it !)
And on a personal note for me it was great to be able to perform 4 times (Yaegoromo, Jinbo Sanya, Mujushin Kyoku, and Tamuke), as well as give one workshop (Echigo Sanya). And so many people I didn't know came up to to say kind things to me (I guess if anyone had anything nasty to say, they just kept it to themselves!)

There are kinks to be overcome and worked out, but if it is possible , it looks like Kyoto in 2012.
My home away from home.
I'll be changing my annual Japan Tour to coincide with the Festival Dates.
Wanna sign up?
Still a few spots open!

Ronnie

hi Josh,
Congrats man!!!
is there a CD on the way?

Last edited by geni (2008-07-13 23:31:57)

I'm always raving against the concept of Shakuhachi competitions but you guys are making it sound like an exciting and fun time. I stand corrected (happily). Wish I had been there.
Josh, I'm proud of you... and lovely stuff on your Myspace page too!.