Tadashi Tajima - Shakuhachi

Tadashi Tajima (田嶋直士) is Japan’s leading international shakuhachi performer. He is a professor in Tokyo and Osaka, and the founder of the Jikishoryu method of playing. He gives a series of recitals in Tokyo and Osaka twice a year (76 in total) and outside Japan he has performed over 400 concerts in 20 countries.

Tajima is a regular guest at many festivals worldwide including the Salzburg Festival and the Bach Music Festival, and has been the recipient of the Japan Cultural Agency Art Festival Award twice, in 1990 and 2007. He has collaborated with artists of various genres, expanding and exploring the shakuhachi’s expressive power and diversity to critical acclaim.

As a soloist at the Bach Festival in Leipzig, he performed the world premiere of the concerto Voyage X by Toshio Hosokawa at the St. Thomas Church, receiving a standing ovation.

Watch Tadashi Tajima plays Shika no Tōne (鹿の遠音) with recorderist Tosiya Suzuki. The video is part of the Play Further! Video Series.