Kansas School Of Fine Arts Presents 'Silk, Bamboo In Japanese Music'

"Asian Soundscapes: Silk and Bamboo in Japanese Music" features the artists of Duo Sõkyõ, a USA-based Japanese performance ensemble. Duo Sõkyõ, comprised of artists David Wheeler and Yoki Hiraoka, specializes in the classical music of Edo and Meiji-era Japan as well as 20th century and contemporary Japanese compositions.

The performance at Swarthout will feature works of the koto, shamisen and shakuhachi, as well as vocal and ensemble arrangements. Already scheduled to perform in Kansas City for the Great Kansas City Japan Festival, Wheeler and Hiraoka will bring their performance to the KU community on Thursday evening.

"This concert is a unique opportunity for our community to take a musical journey to Japan without literally traveling there," said Ketty Wong, assistant professor of ethnomusicology at KU. "It will be particularly interesting for the public because David Wheeler and Yoko Kiraoka will complement their performances with insights and comments on Japanese musical aesthetics and the history of silk and bamboo instruments. 'Silk' is the East Asian category for string instruments such as the koto and the shamisen, while 'bamboo' refers to wind instruments like the shakuhachi flute."

Wong adds that this concert will better help the public understand Japanese music.

"Traditional Japanese music is quite different from Western music in terms of sound, texture and rhythm. The lecture and concert will help the audience better understand the essence and beauty of Japanese music, and I know it will be a great musical experience that will open our Western ears to the world's diversity."

KU's Department of Music and Dance collaborated with the Great Kansas City Japan Festival, the KU Department of East Asian Language Cultures, the KU Department of History and the Center for East Asian Studies to secure this performance.

Yoko Hiraoka

Yoko Hiraoka is a senior master performer of Koto, Shamisen and Jiuta voice. She is a native of Kyoto, Japan and studied for many years classical koto music and Kyushu-ryu Jiuta shamisen with Yoshiko Saito and modern koto music with Shigehiro Shimada in Kyoto. She also studied with Mamoru Ono, founder of Somei Ongakukai in Tokyo. Her professional performance career originated in Japan and spans almost 30 years. She has been a member of Kyoto Hogaku Group (an orchestra of traditional Japanese instruments), Kyoto Sankyoku-kai and Shikandaza Ensemble in Japan. Her repertoire includes contemporary compositions and improvisations. She often collaborates with Jazz musicians and other contemporary musicians, and has played on the album Mandala by Kitaro.

Since moving to the U.S in 1993, she has performed extensively at festivals, concerts, lecture-recitals, and on television/radio and studio recordings. Her performances have included performing at International Shakuhachi Festivals, the Art Institute of Chicago, Portland Art Museum, University of Illinois, Smith College, Bowdoin College, Emory University, DePauw University, Colby College, Northwestern University, and major music festivals throughout the USA such as the Lotus Festival and the Kansas City Japan Festival.

Ms. Hiraoka taught world music ensemble at the University of Colorado in 1997-98 and has been teaching students at Naropa University in Boulder since 1995.

David Wheeler

A senior performer and musicologist, David Wheeler lived in Japan for over twenty years studying and performing the shakuhachi (Japan's vertical bamboo flute) with Japan's finest traditional ensembles.

In Tokyo in 1977, he commenced study with renowned master Junsuke Kawase III, head of the Chikuyu-sha school of Kinko Style classical shakuhachi performance.

Wheeler received his MA in musicology from Tokyo University of Fine Arts in 1985. He has benefited from studying and playing with the majority of the great shakuhachi masters of the latter half of the 20th century, including late living national treasure Goro Yamaguchi, living national treasure Reibo Aoki II, Katsuya Yokoyama and Kodo Araki V as well as Kawase. Wheeler's professional career started in Tokyo, and has since taken him all over Japan and around the world. He is highly respected by his Japanese peers for his mastery of the classical shakuhachi genres of both solo and ensemble (with Japanese string instruments) and for his work in crossing musical and artistic barriers both within and outside of the Japanese traditional performing arts world. He now teaches and performs from a base in the United States. -- www2.ku.edu