ESS ONLINE EVENTS 2024 – 25

play • learn • compose • share • listen • talk • enjoy 🙂

We are happy to announce the ESS Online Events for 2024-25! 
After the success of our last event series, we have another wide selection of events lined up for you. We invite you to seven events spread out between 3. November 2024 and 17. May 2025. As we always curious to try out new ideas, we will have some new formats and hope there is something for everybody – we are certainly very excited of what is coming up!

Quick overview of events:

10. + 17. November & 1 December 2024 Event #2
Composing for Shakuhachi with Chris Molina

19. January 2025 Event #3
ESS New Year Concert – ESS Members & guests

15.+16. February 2025 Event #4
Intermediate/Advanced workshop with Zenyoji Keisuke, 

Christopher Yohmei Blasdel, Martha Reika Fabrique, Jean-François Suizan Lagrost

2. March 2025 Event #5
ESS Sunday Brunch with Hélène Seiyu Codjo

4. May 2025 Event #6
ESS Sunday Brunch with tba

17. May 2025 Event #7
Anime & Game Tunes with Seimo Yamaguchi

The season starts off on the 3. November with the new format of ESS Shakuhachi Sunday Brunch, a mix of informal gathering and formal teaching open to all levels, but in particular we welcome all you shakuhachi beginners and elementary players. The Sunday Brunch is a free event to attend and will be led by an experienced shakuhachi player and teacher. Each brunch starts off with blowing some ro-buki together to get into the spirit, followed by an open forum where we will accommodate teachings about techniques, an open mic kind of slot, where you can present your playing to get feedback from the session leader, talks and other type of presentations or discussions as well as Q & A about shakuhachi related issues. Finally the last hour or so, there will be a specific piece taught.

Our ‘Chefs de partie’ for the upcoming Sunday Shakuhachi Brunch are Kyle Chōmei Kamal Helou (3. November 2024), Hélène Seiyu Codjo (2. March 2025) and a yet to be announced programme on the 4. May 2025.

November sees also the start of a 3-session shakuhachi course about composition skills and technique. We are thrilled to have Chris Molina, shakuhachi composer and performer, to guide us through the basic ingredients and approaches to write and compose music for shakuachi. This course is open to all levels, and in particular welcomes people with no prior composing experience too. The initial two sessions of Composing for Shakuhachi – A Beginner’s Guide for Turning Ideas into Music will be on 10. and 17. November. After a two week period for creation and polishing we then have a final session on 1. December, where participants will each present a short composition, either as live performance or recorded mp3, and where we will then share our feedback.

Next year the programme continues with the ESS New Year Concert on 19 January 2025. As already in 2024 we placed the annual online gathering to a quieter moment in the year and we hope it gives us again the energy and strength to welcome and sustain us through 2025. We have not finalised the details here but the programme will involve our ESS membership.

As we continue our event series we have a dedicated intermediate/advanced workshop lined up for the 15+16 February 2025. Here we have from Japan Zenyoji Keisuke (Kimpu-ryū Nezasa-ha), from USA Christopher Yohmei Blasdel (Kinko-ryu/Chikumeisha) and Martha Reika Fabrique (Mujuan/Jin Nyodo) as well our European guest Jean-François Suizan Lagrost (Shin-Tozan-ryū). The sessions will feature a mix of traditional honkyoku and sankyoku pieces. Not to miss, for any level.

As mentioned we will have two more Sunday Shakuhachi Brunch in 2025, starting with Helene Seiyu Codjo on 2. March and the tba programme on 4. May.

This already brings us to May and our last event, and again to an area of shakuhachi music we have not explored that much within the ESS. On 17. May we will welcome Seimo Yamaguchi to introduce and teach us his favourite Anime & Game Tunes. Cosplay is an option of course. 🙂

SCHEDULES & CONTENT

Please visit the individual event pages to see relevant schedules.

We do not anticipate that general start and end times given for each day on the schedules will change but the individual lesson durations within may be amended to suit the evolving teaching content. So check back occasionally to see if there were any changes or updates.

TEACHING MATERIALS

If there are study materials (score, fingering charts, mp3, etc..) for a workshop provided by the teacher we aim to make them available to the registered participants 1-2 weeks before event commences. For the workshops using a score, we suggest you print a hardcopy beforehand.

ZOOM RECORDINGS

Dependent on permission by the teacher we will make recordings of the zoom sessions availabe to the registered participants to view online for about two weeks after the event finishes.

By participating in the event, you agree to (1) the sessions being recorded. And (2) these recordings being made available to view for about 2 weeks after the event to other workshop participants. You are not allowed to record and/or disseminate the Zoom sessions yourself.

ZOOM / ZOOM LINK

The online platform for the event series is Zoom. Please note that you will need to install the Zoom application on your device to attend. But there is no need to open a Zoom account. If you have any questions about technical aspects of Zoom please contact us beforehand.

We will also send out a the relevant zoom link and a guide with zoom set-up and workshop etiquette a couple of days before the event.