AKIKAZU NAKAMURA -COMPOSER, JAPANESE BAMBOO FLUTE PLAYER

Akikazu Nakamura studied with Katsuya Yokoyama and several masters of the komuso shakuhachi.  He studied composition and jazz theory at Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating summa cum laude, and subsequently gained a scholarship to study composition and third-stream music in the graduate school of the New England Conservatory. Nakamura is a unique shakuhachi player who makes use of circular breathing based on his own distinctive method missoku ("esoteric breathing") , a method of breathing with ancient origins in Japan. He masterd this method over many years through his own single-minded effort and it enables him to make free use of harmonics. He has also mastered the technique of playing and singing different melodic lines at the same time. The core of his work as a musician involves the collection, analysis and performance of shakuhachi music handed down in pre-modern times by the mendicant Zen monks known as komusō, but he is also active in a wide range of musical genres including rock, jazz, contemporary classical music, improvised music and cross-genre collaboration. He has performed in over 150 cities in more than 40 countries and has been invited to appear at the Montreux Jazz Festival and at Blue Note jazz club in New York. He has released twelve CDs and written four books. He teaches at four colleges and universities.