"A Shakuhachi Odyssey -- Enchanted by Timbres of Heaven" is a collection of autobiographical essays, cultural musings, musical stories and more. It beat out over 200 competitors to receive last year's Rennyo Sho, a nonfiction literature prize sponsored by the Honganji Temple Foundation and supported by Kawade Publishing.
Author, research musicologist, teacher, composer and performer of shakuhachi music in genres ranging from the classical to the avant-garde, Christopher Yohmei Blasdel brings multiple facets of his award-winning book to life in a recital of the same name June 23 at Suntory Hall.
The shakuhachi, Japan's vertical bamboo flute with the profound and haunting sound, has a history in both fact and legend that dates back over 1,000 years to China and beyond. Blasdel's autobiography presents a life that is a microcosm of the history of the shakuhachi, as told in the legend presented in "Kyotaku Denki Kokujikai (The Transmission of the Empty Bell)":
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