Freeport, Bahamas -
Elizabeth Reian Bennett,
the first woman to play professionally as a
Grand Master of the
shakuhachi,
the Japanese bamboo flute will be performing in Grand Bahama at the
Labyrinth in the Garden of the Groves on
Boxing Day, December 26th. The
concert begins at 3:30pm and is in aid of the Grand Bahama Performing
Arts Society.
Tickets are $10 for adults, and $5 for children 12 and under. Refreshments will be included.
Reian Bennett stands out as one of only a handful of
western players trained in traditional Japanese music. She has studied
and performed with Living National Treasure Aoki Reibo, recognized as
Japan's foremost shakuhachi instrumentalist, for over 30 years.
Since her debut recital
in Tokyo in 1984
, Reian Bennett has performed frequently in Japan
and worldwide, from Australia and Europe to Mexico, Afghanistan and
the United States. Tokyo performances are planned every two years. Notable
venues have included Tokyo National Theater and NHK (Japan National
TV); her next recital will be in March, 2012. She as been interviewed
on radio by Faith Middleton of
Fresh Air, Robert J. Lurtsema
of
Morning Pro Musica and Richard Knisley of
Classical Performances.
Her CD entitled
Song of
the True Hand,
released in 2006, was nominated 'Instrumental
Album of the Year' by Jon Sobel at Blogcritics Magazine. In describing
it, Sobel wrote, “(it exemplifies)… the way a single individual
with a musical instrument can wordlessly conjure the human spirit out
of thin air.” Hartford Advocate critic Dan Barry compares her musical
vocabulary to “…Coltrane in his prime”. Jay Keister, critic for
The Journal of the Society for Asian Music, praises “Bennett’s
impressive technique…Her skill with the instrument is clearly world-class.”
Reian Bennett teaches the shakuhachi through the world music program
at Tufts University, and in the Boston area.
About the Japanese Shakuhachi
The shakuhachi is a vertical
bamboo flute named after its length. A ‘shaku’ is a measure of about
a foot, and ‘hachi’ is the number eight. A 1.8 shakuhachi is the
standard length, about two feet long, with a starting pitch of D above
middle C on the western scale. The flute is distinctive for its beveled
embouchure, the equivalent of a recorder without its ‘bec’ or top
part. With only five holes, pitches must be produced by two different
head movements, and up to three finger positions on each hole. Vibrato
is produced by shaking the head, and the use of distinctive breathy,
foggy, clear and harmonic textures make the sound of the shakuhachi
stand out among instruments.
The shakuhachi is most famous
for the role it played in a sect of wandering monks, whose members traveled
throughout Japan begging for rice as they played. The shakuhachi was
used as a focus of concentration by the monks; and its sound is thought
to convey the listener to the realm of ‘mu’, or that which is not:
not everyday reality filtered by culture, upbringing, education or habits
of mind. The flute itself is a symbol of the goal of the shakuhachi
player: a vessel through which the wind blows.
The possession and playing
of a shakuhachi was at first allowed only to the monks, thus a shorter
one-jointed shakuhachi joined singers and string players from the 15th
century. It wasn’t until the late 18th century, when the
monks decided to teach the shakuhachi and sell ranks and certificates,
in the style of the string players and tea masters, that the common
person could learn the instrument. This first ‘school’ or geneaology
of shakuhachi was begun by Kurosawa Kinko (d. 1771) and is known as
the Kinko school. Elizabeth Reian belongs to the Reibokai, an offshoot
of this school, through her teacher Aoki Reibo. Reibo Sensei can trace
his teachers, beginning with his father, back to Kinko.
By the time of Kinko, the shakuhachi
had begun to be played in ensemble with the 13-stringed zither, or koto,
and the three-stringed shamisen. Nowadays a shakuhachi player learns
both the earliest solo monk pieces as well as the jiuta or chamber music
repertory. A wholly different style of music began to be written
for the shakuhachi and other Japanese instruments in Japan in the late
19th and 20th centuries, influenced by western
music, and the range of sound and timber that the shakuhachi can produce
continue to attract the attention of contemporary composers worldwide.
