Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments. Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and reed instruments. The main distinction between these instruments and other wind instruments is the way in which they produce sound. All woodwinds produce sound by splitting the air blown into them on a sharp edge, such as a reed or a fipple. Despite the name, a woodwind may be made of any material, not just wood. Common examples of other materials include brass, silver, cane, and other metals such as gold and platinum. The saxophone, for example, though made of brass, is considered a woodwind because it requires a reed to produce sound. Occasionally, woodwinds are made of earthen materials, especially ocarinas.
A shakuhachi is a Japanese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the shakuhachi was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the fuke shakuhachi (普化尺八). A bamboo flute known as the kodai shakuhachi or gagaku shakuhachi (雅楽尺八) was derived from the Chinese xiao in the Nara period and died out in the 10th century. After a long blank period, the hitoyogiri shakuhachi (一節切尺八) appeared in the 15th century, and then in the 16th century, the fuke shakuhachi was developed in Japan. The fuke shakuhachi flourished in the 18th century during the Edo period, and eventually the hitoyogiri shakuhachi also died out. The fuke shakuhachi developed in Japan is longer and thicker than the kodai shakuhachi and has one finger hole less. It is longer and thicker than hitoyogiri shakuhachi and is superior in volume, range, scale and tone quality. Today, since the shakuhachi generally refers only to fuke shakuhachi, the theory that the shakuhachi is an instrument unique to Japan is widely accepted.
Brian Ritchie is an American musician, best known as the bassist for the alternative rock band Violent Femmes. Ritchie was born and raised in the United States and is currently a dual citizen of the U.S. and Australia, with his full-time residence in Australia.
Toshi Ichiyanagi was a Japanese avant-garde composer and pianist. One of the leading composers in Japan during the postwar era, Ichiyanagi worked in a range of genres, composing Western-style operas and orchestral and chamber works, as well as compositions using traditional Japanese instruments. Ichiyanagi is known for incorporating avant-garde techniques into his works, such as chance music, extended technique, and nontraditional scoring. Ichiyanagi was married to artist Yoko Ono from 1956 to 1962.
Edmund Welles was an American bass clarinet quartet from Oakland, California. Its members were Cornelius Boots, Jonathan Russell, Jeff Anderle, and Aaron Novik, playing what the group refers to as "heavy chamber music." The group performed many different genres of music, including avant-garde, gospel, jazz, and heavy metal. They have performed cover versions of songs by such groups as Radiohead, Primus, Black Sabbath, The Residents, Iron Maiden and Spinal Tap, as well as approximately 50 original compositions.
Alcvin Ryuzen Ramos is a shakuhachi teacher, performer, composer, and maker based in Canada. Born in Japan, Ramos has also lived in the United States and now lives in Western Canada. In 2003, he founded the Bamboo-In Shakuhachi Space on the Sunshine Coast.
John Palmer (1959) is a British composer, pianist, musicologist, and university professor.
The Happy End Problem is a studio album by English guitarist, composer and improvisor Fred Frith, and is the fifth of a series of Music for Dance albums he made. It comprises two suites composed in 2003 by Frith "for flute, bassoon, gu zheng, percussion, violin and electronics" and was recorded in 2003 and 2004.
Makoto Shinohara was a Japanese composer.
Ken LaCosse was an American maker of the shakuhachi. He is known particularly for developing a large, wide bore style of shakuhachi called Taimu, with input from shakuhachi player Brian Ritchie.
Riley Kelly Lee is an American-born Australian-based shakuhachi player and teacher. In 1980 he became the first non-Japanese person to attain the rank of Dai Shihan in the shakuhachi tradition. He is a recipient of two of the most revered lineages of shakuhachi playing, descending from the original Zen Buddhist "priests of nothingness" of the Edo period. His first teachers were Hoshida Ichizan II and Chikuho Sakai II. A later teacher was Katsuya Yokoyama.
The Melos Ensemble is a group of musicians who started in 1950 in London to play chamber music in mixed instrumentation of string instruments, wind instruments and others. Benjamin Britten composed the chamber music for his War Requiem for the Melos Ensemble and conducted the group in the first performance in Coventry.
Roger Bourland is an American composer, publisher, blogger, and Professor-Emeritus of Music at the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music.
Sarah Kirkland Snider is an American composer. She has received critical acclaim for her chamber, orchestral, song cycle, choral, and ballet works.
Rodrigo Rodríguez is a Spanish shakuhachi player.
Alexander Moosbrugger is an Austrian Composer, living since 2001 in Berlin.
Alessandro Solbiati is an Italian composer of classical music, who has composed instrumental music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, art songs and operas. He received international commissions and awards, and many of his works are recorded. He is also an academic, teaching in Italy and France.
Jonathan Russell is an American composer of classical music, clarinetist, and bass clarinetist. Russell was the founder of the Switchboard Music Festival, which will hold its 10th anniversary in the summer of 2018. His primary teachers have included Paul Lansky, Barbara White, Steve Mackey, Elinor Armer, and Eric Ewazen.
Ferdinand Ries composed his Clarinet Sonata in G minor, Op. 29, in Bonn in 1809 according to his thematic catalog, but it was not published until 1812 by Simrock without a dedication. Its composition history is unclear but it may have been written with a particular clarinetist in mind. The work has sometimes been transcribed for violin.
Jonathan McCollum, Professor of Music at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, is an ethnomusicologist and performer on the Japanese shakuhachi, trombone, and bass trombone. He is the founding Chair of the Historical Ethnomusicology section of the Society for Ethnomusicology, and is known for his work on the music of Armenia and Japan.
