Riley Lee

Though I was born in Texas, I don’t remember much of my birthplace. Our family moved to Oklahoma when I was six. The Midwest in the 1950s was a wonderful place for a young boy. We moved to Hawai’i when I was 14. Honolulu in the 196os was also a wonderful place, especially for a teenager.

I began playing shakuhachi in Japan in 1971.

My primary teacher was Katsuya Yokoyama. A very wise and generous man, Yokoyama sensei seemed to be able to maintain the perfect balance between being always ready to laugh yet always serious, extremely kind yet ever so strict. Sadly, he died in 2010.

In the early 1970s, I became the first non-Japanese professional taiko (Japanese drums) player, with Sado no Kuni Ondekoza (now Kodo). I didn’t realise that I was the first, until my friend Kenny Endo (a real taiko player) pointed it out to me a few years ago.

In 1980, I also became the first non-Japanese shakuhachi Grand Master (dai shihan). Again, I didn’t realise that this was another ‘first’ at the time. I was fortunate to be at the right place at the right time, and to have the right inclination to practice what seemed like all day every day for years.

I have a PhD (ethnomusicology) from Sydney University and an MA from University of Hawai’i. Together, these two degrees took me ten years to complete, one year more than what the dai shihan ‘degree’ took.

A few years ago, I recently created and taught a semester-long course at Princeton University on the mind, memory, meditation and mindfulness and music, based on the latest research in cognitive science. I’m fairly certain that I learned more from the experience than the students.

So far, I’ve made more than 60 recordings, of music from many genres of music. My first album, in 1980, was on vinyl, because CDs weren’t invented yet. It’s still available on the Smithsonian-Folkways label. More are in the works.