Look & Listen: Nature in Japanese Art and Music

#LookandListen
Look & Listen: Nature in Japanese Art and Music, Kurahashi Yodo II, shakuhachi, with curator Frank Feltens

Travel to misty mountain valleys and foggy ocean beaches through the eyes of great Japanese artists from the sixteenth century on, accompanied by the sounds of the shakuhachi (bamboo flute), in this exploration of nature as an inspiration for Japanese art and music. Paintings and shakuhachi pieces that evoke the distant sound of bells and the autumn cry of deer will expand on the indirect and abstract references to nature often found in art and music. Our guides will be the venerable virtuoso Kurahashi Yodo II, direct from Tokyo, and curator Frank Feltens, whose recent exhibitions have explored Shinto religious art, Hokusai, and modern woodblock prints. 
 
Kurahashi Yodo II has performed internationally on shakuhachi for more than fifty years, touring in China, 马来西亚, 加拿大, 以色列, 百慕大, 澳大利亚, and throughout Europe and the United States. He is deeply schooled in the traditional solo music of Zen Buddhist honkyoku, but his repertoire ranges from the classical music of the Edo period to the most exciting new music written for shakuhachi. He last performed at the Freer and Sackler in 2015. 

Frank Feltens is assistant curator of Japanese art at the Freer and Sackler.

Image credits:
World Shakuhachi Festival 2018

Umbrella-maker and Itinerant Bamboo-flute players, Iwasa Matabei (1578–1650), 日本, Edo period, Purchase—Charles Lang Freer Endowment, Freer Gallery of Art, F1969.18