In Honor of William P. Malm: Pre-Concert Lecture on Japanese Music & Dance

Описание: David Furumoto (Onoe Kikunobuhide), David Kansuke Wheeler, Tsukasa Taiko

Recorded on Saturday, September 20, 2025

Presented as part of a series: "A Celebration of Japanese Music and Dance: The Ethnomusicology Legacy of Professor William P. Malm."

Professor William P. Malm was one of the foremost ethnomusicologists of Japanese music and one of the founding figures of ethnomusicology in the United States. His pioneering work has influenced countless musicians, scholars, and students. A faculty member at the University of Michigan from 1960 to 1996, Professor Malm authored the first English-language study of Japanese music and instruments, and developed a distinguished graduate program that brought international perspectives to the field. As director of the university's Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments, he brought together high level scholarship, curation, and performance; acquired important instruments including the first commercially made Moog Synthesizer; and founded the U-M Gamelan Ensemble. He contributed significantly to the understanding of music across Asia through research and teaching, and was recognized with numerous honors, including the Fumio Koizumi Prize in Ethnomusicology and the Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government.

ABOUT THE GUEST ARTISTS

David Furumoto is a professor emeritus from the Department of Theatre and Drama at the University Wisconsin-Madison, where he taught in the acting and directing program for 21 years. He earned both his A.B. and M.F.A. at the University of Hawai’i-Manoa, focusing on traditional Asian theatre performance. While a student, he performed in numerous English-language premieres of Kabuki plays, including notable roles such as Benkei in Kanjincho and Yuranosuke in Chushingura. In 1982, he received the Crown Prince Akihito Scholarship to study as a special observer at the National Theatre of Japan’s kabuki training class. He also holds a professional title from the Onoe School of Classical Japanese Dance.

Musician and musicologist David Kansuke Wheeler spent twenty years in Japan studying and performing the shakuhachi with traditional masters and ensembles, beginning in Tokyo in 1977 under Kinko ryū master Junsuke Kawase III (Kansuke I). In 2008, in recognition of three decades of performing, producing, and teaching, he received the performance name Kansuke II. Wheeler has played a central role in every major world shakuhachi festival since 1994. In 1999, he co-founded the Shakuhachi Summer Camp of the Rockies, which held its 26th camp in June 2024. Now based in Boulder, he aims to cross musical and artistic barriers both within and outside of the Japanese traditional performing arts world.

Tsukasa Taiko, a program of the nonprofit organization Asian Improv aRts Midwest, aims to preserve, develop, and pass on traditional concepts of Japanese art as a cultural legacy, while also expanding taiko as an art form. Its professional unit, Gintenkai, inherits compositions from Tokyo’s 1970s underground theater and music scene, bringing them to the contemporary stage with complex, refined arrangements. These works emphasize musical phrasing over rhythmic patterns and feature choreographic dance to retain an authentic Japanese aesthetic. Tsukasa reincorporates geza music using shamisen and shinobue, reinforcing historical ties between music, dance, and theater. Performers include Kioto Aoki, Miyumi Aoki, and Neil Ducklow.