The Mindful Playing of the Shakuhachi with Kiku Day

On episode 53  of the Ikigai Podcast, Nick speaks with Kiku Day about the beneficial aspects of playing the shakuhachi and how it is more than just a musical instrument. 

Kiku Day is a shakuhachi player, a Ph.D. ethnomusicologist, and a world traveller from Copenhagen, Denmark. Her work lies at the intersections of performance of traditional shakuhachi music, contemporary music and improvisation, ethnomusicology, history, politics, meditation, and writing. 

She studied shakuhachi with Okuda Atsuya, one of the foremost performers of jinashi shakuhachi, in Tokyo, Japan for 11 years before returning to Europe to study ethnomusicology at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. 

Kuki is also a founding member of the European Shakuhachi Society (ESS) for which she served as a chairperson from 2009-2019. She is dedicated to performing on jinashi shakuhachi, both honkyoku and contemporary music, and also teaches the shakuhachi online.