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Los Tres Gaijingos Perform Shakuhachi
(Japanese Flute)

 June 20 -  21 at Crow Collection of Asian Art

The Trammell and Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art will present a concert of shakuhachi (Japanese flute) by three of Texas finest masters, Los Tres Gaijingos, on Friday, June 20 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, June 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Crow Collection, 2010 Flora St.

The concert will feature music from ancient meditations of Japanese Zen monks to the serene new age composition of Riley Lee. Seating is limited. Call 214-979-6438 for reservations. Presented in collaboration with the Japan-America Society of Dallas/ Fort Worth. Admission is $20 for non-members, $15 for Friends of the Crow Collection of Asian Art. A reception will start each evening one hour before show time.

Los Tres Gaijingos (the three outsiders) is made up of renowned recording artists Christopher Blasdel, Riley Lee and Stan Richardson.

Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began playing the shakuhachi and studying Japanese music in 1972 while a student at Waseda University in Tokyo with shakuhachi master Goro Yamaguchi. He received a teaching license and the professional name Yohmi from Yamaguchi in 1984. At the same time, he completed graduate work in ethnomusicology at Tokyos National University of Music and Fine Arts. Presently residing in Japan, he has performed, taught and lectured throughout China, Thailand, Europe, North America, Mexico and the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In 1988 he was visiting artist in residence at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana and in 1991 was a guest professor at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. Currently he acts as advisor to the arts program at the International House of Japan and teaches privately and at the Asahi Culture Center in Shinjuku, Tokyo.

Riley Lee began playing the shakuhachi in Japan in 1971, studied with Chikuho Sakai until 1980, and has been a student of Katsuya Yokoyama since 1984. While in Japan he toured internationally as a full-time performer of taiko (Japanese festival drums and shakuhachi performing with such groups as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and at venues such as Kennedy Center and Roundhouse Theatre in London. He returned to Honolulu in 1976 and founded the Chikuho School of Shakuhachi of Hawaii. In 1986 he left for Australia to pursue a PhD fellowship at the University of Sydney. His PhD dissertation topic was on the Zen repertoire of the shakuhachi. He was an East-West Center grantee in 1985-86 and a Japan Foundation fellow in 1988-1989. He was made Honourary Fellow of the University of Western Sydney in 1997. In 1998, he founded world music group Con Spirit Oz, featuring music for shakuhachi, didjeridu, percussion and guitar. Its debut performance at the Sydney Opera House in 1999 received rave reviews. Since 1980, he has made nearly 40 commercially released recordings, which are sold worldwide on a number of labels.

Stan Richardson began his musical career at age five with the recorder and soon progressed to violin and viola. At age eight he was composing classical music and had completed a string quartet by age 11. Stan was also an avid singer and became head choirboy in his local church. He sang often at the famous Coventry Cathedral. Stan became interested in ethnic music from the spiritual traditions of Japan and China and in 1972 began study of the shakuhachi. He has studied with Ronnie Seldin in New York and some of Japans greatest masters. Stan is currently head of Mujuan Shakuhachi Fojo, the Texas branch of a school based in Kyoto-founded by Yodo Kurahashi. He has ten students from around Texas where his teaching emphasizes the ancient meditation music of the Zen tradition. His recording, Shakuhachi Meditation Music is on of the best selling recordings of solo shakuhachi music by a non-Japanese. In 1998 he was a featured performer and teacher at the World Shakuhachi Festival in Boulder, Colorado. In 2002 he performed with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the gala event featuring renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma.

About the Shakuhachi

Every shakuhachi begins as a stalk of yellow-green bamboo. The bamboo used to make the shakuhachi is a very common species called madake, which means true bamboo in Japanese. This type of bamboo often grows in large groves that may cover many acres. One grove may contain hundreds, or even thousands of other stalks, nearly all of which are as tall as a six-story building. Master craftsmen are still the only source of quality instruments. Because each piece of bamboo is unique in dimensions, density and bore, getting a shakuhachi to play well is mostly an intuitive process. Shakuhachi makers will frequently refer to their best instruments as accidents. The shakuhachi is a very simple instrument. It has no keys or pads like those on a western flute. There is no reed, like on a clarinet or saxophone, and no strings like on a guitar or violin. It doesnt even have a mouthpiece like the recorder. There are no mechanisms inside it that make the sound, like those inside a piano or organ. With only five finger holes, it has less finger holes than almost any other common wind instrument. Yet despite its simple construction, the shakuhachi in the hands of a master can produce an unbelievably wide range of sounds. The shakuhachi was first introduced into Japan from China in the eighth century. It has been used in a spiritual context since the 15th century or earlier. In the Edo period (1600-1868), playing the shakuhachi was the primary meditative practice of a sect of Zen Buddhist monks, who called themselves komuso (priests of nothingness).

About The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art

The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art contains more than 600 paintings, objects of metal and stone, and large architectural pieces from China, Japan, India, and Southeast Asia. Over 300 works are on display in the galleries including precious jade ornaments from China, delicate Japanese scrolls and a rarely seen 28-foot by 12-foot sandstone facade of an 18th century Indian residence. The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art is located at 2010 Flora Street (between Harwood and Olive Streets and adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art) and is open Tuesday -Sunday 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday until 9 p.m. Call (214) 979-6435 or visit www.crowcollection.org.

Edited by Madelyn Miller

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