Riley Lee

I was born in Texas. 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 in 1966. Honolulu in the 196os was also a wonderful place, especially for a teenager. I began playing shakuhachi in Japan in 1971. My main teacher was Katsuya Yokoyama. A very wise and generous man, Yokoyama sensei was able to maintain a perfect balance between being always ready to laugh yet always serious, extremely kind yet ever so strict. Sadly, he died in 2010. In 1980, I 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 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. 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 my students. So far, I’ve made more than 60 recordings, of music from many genres of music. More are in the works. At present, my wife Patricia and I live in Manly NSW Australia, another wonderful place, especially now.