Christopher Yohmei Blasdel

Christopher Blasdel began his research from the Shakuhachi and of Japan music in 1972 using the past due Goro Yamaguchi, among the great Japan Shakuhachi experts. In 1982, he received a M.F.A. in ethnomusicology from Tokyo School of Great Arts and in 1984 his professional name, “Yohmei,” from Goro Yamaguchi. Performing in Japan and all over the world, Blasdel maintains a stability between traditional Shakuhachi music, contemporary compositions, and cross-genre use other music artists, dancers, poets, and painters. His discography contains many CDs of traditional and modern music. He provides constructed and performed music for NHK documentaries and different films. He’s the author from the Shakuhachi, A Manual for Learning (Ongaku no Tomo-sha, 1988), the most important English-language book in the Shakuhachi. He was also among the co-organizers for the Globe Shakuhachi Event ’98 kept in Boulder, CO. His most recent publication, Shakuhachi Odyssey (Kawade Web publishers, 2000), created in Japanese and describing his encounters learning and playing the Shakuhachi, was granted the esteemed Japanese Rennyo Prize for fiction.