Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began the shakuhachi in 1972 under legendary shakuhachi master Yamaguchi Goro, completed his MA in ethnomusicology from Tokyo University of Arts in 1982 and received his shihan license from Yamaguchi in 1984. As a scholar and performer, Blasdel focuses both on traditional and contemporary music. He has released several CDs, shakuhachi reference books and has composed music for NHK documentaries and various films. He co-organized the Boulder World Shakuhachi Festival (1998), the Sydney World Shakuhachi Festival (2008) and was co-founder of the Prague Shakuhachi Festival. He presently lectures at University of Hawai’i and holds a fifth-degree black belt in Aikido. Gunnar Jinmei Linder came to Japan in 1985, with a BA in philosophy and Japanology, and began studies of shakuhachi with Yamaguchi Goro. He received an MA in shakuhachi from the Traditional Music Conservatoire at Tokyo University of the Arts in 1997, and the traditional license shihan in 1998. After many years in Japan as stage and recording artist, as well as teacher of shakuhachi, he returned to his native Sweden and received a PhD in Japanology at Stockholm University in 2012 (Deconstructing Tradition in Japanese Music). In 2016 he received a diploma from the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs for his artistic and academic activities.