Kirkland Performance Center presents...
Hanz Araki & The Celtic Conspiracy's Solstice Concert
- December 11, 8:00PM
Choice: $22 | Prime: $25
IRISH FLUTE MUSIC • FOLK
Artist Sponsors: Doreen Marchione, Karin Quirk, Attorney at Law
Hanz Araki is the sixth generation in his family line to play the shakuhachi, a traditional Japanese flute, and the first to bring the music of Scotland and Ireland into his repertoire. This concert will celebrate the magic of the winter solstice.
Irish flute player Hanz Araki is the quintessential world music musician. While his love is Irish music, his deep roots are in the shakuhachi, the traditional bamboo "Zen flute" of Japan. Hanz (short for Hanzaburo) is the world’s only sixth generation shakuhachi player, following in the footsteps of his father, Kinko Ryu Grand Master Kodo Araki V. With no prior musical training, Hanz took up the shakuhachi at age 17. Under his father’s tutelage, four months later he made his concert debut in Shimoneski, Japan. He went on to teach shakuhachi at Keio University for two years before moving back to his hometown of Seattle in 1991.
There, his American mother’s Gaelic roots came into play, and he began teaching himself Irish and Scottish tunes on the flute and whistle, inspired by the many excellent pipers and fiddlers in Seattle. His ability on the flute and his uncanny command of traditional songs with his voice quickly made him a fixture of the Irish music scene in America.
