Solo Acoustic Wizards: Ancient & Modern

Observe the result of almost supernatural musical aptitude combined with thousands of hours training in some of the worlds most esoteric and demanding musical methods including absolute breath manipulation, non-linear resonance tunings and expanded, intuitive song structuring. Two different performers will each perform solo sets of music and sounds that are beyond yet parallel to our ordinary, mundane realm. Michael Chikuzen Gould is a Grandmaster of shakuhachi, an ancient Japanese bamboo flute initially utilized as a breath awareness and meditation tool by the Fuke sect of Zen Buddhism. The classical repertoire draws from chant, nature and breath and has evolved fluidly over the past 1000 years in multiple directions. Chikuzen sensei is a transmitter of the dokyoku lineage, an extremely expressive and virtuosic style developed by Watazumido in the 20th century and carried on by shakuhachi masters such as Katsuya Yokoyama and Yoshinobu Taniguchi with whom Chikuzen trained in Japan for 15 years. Mark Deutsch is a visionary artist with a background in non-linear mathematics, sacred systems and cosmology. He has trained and performed extensively in orchestral, jazz, avant-garde, improvisational, and world music traditions on the bass and sitar. Whilst studying sitar and North Indian classical music with the legendary Ustad Imrat Khan, Mark began delving deeper into the universal fundamentals of music and their underlying frequency structures. These studies culminated in 1999 with Mark being awarded the US patent for his ground breaking new instrument the Bazantar—a five-string acoustic bass fitted with an additional twenty-nine sympathetic strings and four drone strings. The result is a remarkable instrument that weaves a mesmerizing soundscape of resonance, and evokes all the power of Western classical music with the depth and nuance of Eastern traditions.