NakaNaka presents: Bamboo Madness

James Schlefer (shakuhachi) and Kaoru Watanabe (shinobue and taiko)
Two of NYC most dynamic performers of Japanese flutes team up for an evening of bamboo madness
with guest Nobuko Miyazaki (shinobue)

DROM
85 Ave A (between 5th and 6th st)
New York, NY
$10 in advance
$12 at the door
dromnyc.com
9 to 11 pm

James Nyoraku Schlefer is a leading performer and teacher of shakuhachi in New York City. In addition to performing and lecturing on traditional Japanese shakuhachi music, Schlefer performs contemporary music for the instrument and is an active composer. In the US he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, Tanglewood, the Metropolitan, Brooklyn and Philadelphia Museums, and has toured internationally in Europe, Asia and South America. Schlefer has four solo recordings, Wind Heart (which was aboard the Space Station MIR for over one year) Solstice Spirit, Flare Up, and In The Moment, and his music was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered. He received the Dai-Shi-Han (Grand Master’s Certificate) in 2001, and in 2007, he received a second Shi-Han license, from Kurahashi Yodo’s Mujuan Dojo in Kyoto. In Japan he has also studied with Aoki Reibo, Yokoyama Katsuya, Yoshinobu Taniguchi, and Mitsuhashi Kifu. He holds a Master’s degree in music from Queens College and is on the CUNY faculty where he teaches courses in Classical Music, World Music and Jazz. James is the Japanese Music Curator for the Arts at Tenri in NYC, presenting four concerts annually of traditional and contemporary music for Japanese instruments, and for ensembles of mixed Japanese and Western instruments. www.nyoraku.com

For almost 800 years, the haunting melodies of the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) were the exclusive domain of Fuke Buddhist monks of the Samurai class. Playing and teaching this music was highly restricted – it belonged to the Buddhist temples of old Japan and the Zen pursuit of the one perfect sound that would bring enlightenment. Today, centuries later, thousands of miles from its origin and following an unbroken line of transmission, American Grand Master James Nyoraku Schlefer brings this timeless music to a contemporary temple of music – DROM.