Silk and Bamboo Concert

Join us for a very special concert of traditional Japanese music in honor of the coming Spring. The diverse program will span many genres: The centuries-old, rarely-performed story-songs of the blind Biwa players; the meditative bamboo flute music of the Zen Komuso monks; and the colorful ensemble music of classical Japanese poetry set to music, Jiuta, featuring vocals, Shamisen, and Shakuhachi.

Yoko Hiraoka is a master performer and teacher of Biwa, Koto, Shamisen and voice. In a career that has spanned almost thirty years she has brought traditional Japanese music alive for audiences in Japan as well as throughout the United States, performing extensively at festivals, concerts, lecture-recitals, and on television/radio and recordings. She is a native of Kyoto, Japan and studied classical and modern koto and shamisen music from an early age. She also studied 5-string Biwa for many years. Her teacher, Kõka Suga, is the direct disciple of Yamazaki Kyokusui, the Living National Treasure. Yoko is now one of only a handful of people throughout the world that regularly performs this demanding repertoire. She moved to the U.S. in 1993 and lives in Louisville, Colorado and teaches at Naropa University in Boulder.

Elliot Kallen plays the shakuhachi, a traditional, end-blown bamboo flute from Japan. He is a student of David Wheeler, Kansuke II, of Boulder, Colorado and also studies with Kansuke's teacher, Junsuke Kawase III, the third generation head of the Chikuyusha shakuhachi school in Tokyo. In 2006, Elliot was honored to be chosen to perform for Kawase-sensei's 70th birthday celebration at the National Theater in Tokyo. Elliot is also a founding member of Sebastopol's Ten Ten Taiko and performs regularly throughout the Bay Area and beyond