News

  • Rockies Down Under Shakuhachi Camp

    2-4 July, pre-Festival Shakuhachi Camp, open to Absolute Beginners and everyone else!!
    Visit the website

  • Volunteer Opportunities

    Get involved as a volunteer and join us in bringing this World Shakuhachi Festival 2008 to Sydney, to Australia, and to the World.

Public Concerts

Concert 1: Traditional and modern: Japan in the roaring twenties

Art Gallery NSW Art After Hours Celebrity Concert

Wednesday 2 July 6.30-7pm

This free concert accompanies the AGNSW's stunning exhibition Taisho chic: Japanese modernity, nostalgia and deco, which shows the embrace and clash of Western modernity with traditional Japan in the roaring twenties. It spotlights a richly textured society under rapid transformation.

Known for its delightful romantic schmalz, music from the Taisho era (1912-1926) is both popular and traditional, and this concert brings the flavour of yesteryear alive. Performers are tutors from the WSF08 Rockies Down Under Camp, including shakuhachi players, Christopher Blasdel, Teruo Furuya, Kaoru Kakizakai, Kazushi Matama, Stan Richardson, David Wheeler and Yoko Hiraoka (koto). The program also features a mass shakuhachi performance of Tamuke, by the Camp participants.

FREE

Concert 2: Breath to Breath: TaikOz and the Shakuhachi

WSF08 Opening Concert

City Recital Hall Angel Place
Friday 4 July 8pm

Described by The Sydney Morning Herald as 'bold and original', TaikOz is one of Australia's most energetic and exciting drumming groups. Powerful taiko drumming is counter-balanced with the softness and lightness of the ethereal shakuhachi. Featuring performances by three shakuhachi grandmasters from Japan. Percussionist Timothy Constable will join TaikOz's own shakuhachi master Riley Lee, adding to this beguiling synthesis of East and West, old and new.

A reserve $65, $55 (pensioner, student, child). B Reserve $55 and $45

Concert 3: The Young Players MP3 Competition Finals Concert

Verbrugghen Hall SCM

Saturday 5 July 10am

The stars of tomorrow compete in an international competition for three Young Performer's Prizes. Finalists are all under the age of 40 years (young!) and will perform a six minute shakuhachi piece for a panel of nine judges. Be amongst the first to hear the mastery of what future audiences will experience!

$60 $50 (pensioner, student, child) and $30 SCM students only.

Concert 4: Angelic Voices: a World of Shakuhachi

City Recital Hall Angel Place

Saturday 5 July 7pm

The jewel in the crown of the World Shakuhachi Festival 2008. The angelic voices of Sydney Children's Choir soar upwards with ethereal streams of shakuhachi music. This concert presents the world premiere of Dan Walker's new composition for shakuhachi ensemble, Sydney Children's Choir and special guest soloists. Also performing in this diverse concert will be Matthew Doyle on didgeridu and other shakuhachi masters from Japan.

In this concert, the shakuhachi also gets a popular jazz twist with John Neptune's laid-back rhythms leading the music into a global arc of pure entertainment.

Premium $80 A reserve $65 and $55 (pensioner, student, child). B Reserve $55 and $45

Concerts 5 and 6: The Tibetan Book of the Dead '….in the Between'

Music Workshop Conservatorium of Music

Saturday 5 July 10pm and 12 midnight

The intimate setting of the Conservatorium's Music Workshop lends itself to the austere and meditative presentation of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, featuring Trikaya: Michael Askill, percussion; Riley Lee, shakuhachi and drum; Tensin Choegyul, singing, Tibetan instruments and narrator James Coates.

A premiere for Sydney, this concert is more 'experience' than performance. Audiences are invited to close their eyes and allow excerpts from the most influential of all Tibetan Buddhist texts to fully permeate their sensorial awareness.

$60 $50 (pensioner, student, child) and $30 SCM students only.

Concerts 7 and 8: As Australian as a Shakuhachi

Verbrugghen Hall, Conservatorium of Music

Sunday 6 July 3pm and 8pm

Australia's internationally renowned Grainger Quartet and harpist Marshall McGuire appear alongside a stellar line-up of top international shakuhachi players. Ross Edwards' meditative Tyalgum Mantras and Anne Boyd's spiritually petitioning Feather on the Breath of God evoke higher realms. Works by Elena Kats-Chernin and Stuart Greenbaum will be premiered.

In this concert we see the shakuhachi foregrounding a power to hold its own as a unique ensemble instrument, an integral part of the Australian music tradition.

The afternoon concert is for general public and the evening concert for WSF08 participants.

$60 and $50 (pensioner, student, child) and $30.00 SCM students only.

Concert 9: World Masters Concert

City Recital Hall Angel Place

Monday 7 July 7pm

The world's greatest shakuhachi players perform the most loved shakuhachi masterpieces. Featuring the Festival's top invited performers: AOKI Reibo, Japan's Living National Treasure; KAWASE Junsuke, Iemoto of Chikumeisha lineage; ARAKI Kodo V, proponent of the longest unbroken shakuhachi lineage; and MIYATA Kohachiro, whose seminal recordings in the 1960s introduced a whole generation of listeners to the shakuhachi.

This concert exhilarates with the experience of master performers playing at their best. A rare treat for Australian audiences, classical and modern pieces intertwine in a program for shakuhachi and other traditional instruments (koto and shamisen).

Premium $80. A reserve $65 and $55 (pensioner, student, child). B Reserve $55 and $45.

Concert 10: Soulful Shakuhachi

Verbrugghen Hall, Conservatorium of Music

Tuesday 8 July 5pm

The World Shakuhachi Festival 2008 closes with a sensory feast of music, a celebration of the exquisite beauty and power of this refined instrument. With a line-up of elite musicians, this concert completes another instalment of an international musical journey full of soulful, eloquent and exotic harmonies. This final concert will include the World Premiere of 'The Root of the Wind' composed by Frances White (Princeton, USA) featuring Taiko, shakuhachi and electronic sounds.

$60 and $50 (pensioner, student, child) and $30.00 SCM students only.