Hōzan Yamamoto is a Japanese shakuhachi

Shakuhachi

The is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of...

 player, composer and lecturer.

Yamamoto started playing the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi from the age of nine. He was initially taught by his father and then by Chozan Nakanishi. After graduating from Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

 Junior College of Foreign Studies in 1958, he participated in UNESCO

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

's World Folk music Festival and graduated from Seiha Music College in 1962. Together with koto

Koto (musical instrument)

The koto is a traditional Japanese stringed musical instrument, similar to the Chinese guzheng, the Mongolian yatga, the Korean gayageum and the Vietnamese đàn tranh. The koto is the national instrument of Japan. Koto are about length, and made from kiri wood...

player Shinichi Yuize and Tony Scott

Tony Scott (musician)

Tony Scott was a jazz clarinetist known for an interest in folk music around the world...

 he recorded the album Music for Zen Meditation

Music for Zen Meditation

Music for Zen Meditation is a 1964 album by jazz clarinetist Tony Scott The album is considered to be the first New Age record. Music for Zen Meditation is mostly improvised by Scott, Shinichi Yuize and Hōzan Yamamoto ....

 in February 1964.

After formation with Reibo Aoki and Katsuya Yokoyama of the widely acclaimed "Shakuhachi Sanbon Kai" trio in 1966, he electrified the conservative traditional scene by applying his talents to a variety of crossover collaborations. These have led him to work with such world renowned musicians as Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar

Ravi Shankar , often referred to by the title Pandit, is an Indian musician and composer who plays the plucked string instrument sitar. He has been described as the best known contemporary Indian musician by Hans Neuhoff in Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart.Shankar was born in Varanasi and spent...

, Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock

Gary Peacock is an American jazz double-bassist.-Biography:After military service in Germany, in the early sixties he worked on the west coast with Barney Kessel, Bud Shank, Paul Bley and Art Pepper, then moved to New York. He worked there with Bley, the Bill Evans trio , and Albert Ayler's trio...

 and Karl Berger

Karl Berger

Karl Hanns Berger is a musicologist with a PhD in Music Sociology, jazz composer, jazz vibraphone and piano player.-Biography:...

, but also with flute colleagues Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Rampal

Jean-Pierre Louis Rampal was a French flautist. He has been personally "credited with returning to the flute the popularity as a solo classical instrument it had not held since the 18th century."-Early years:...

 and Chris Hinze.

In 1980 he was invited to the renowned Donaueschingen

Donaueschingen

Donaueschingen is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar Kreis. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river Danube ....

 music festival with his trio. He recorded the music to the Samurai Reincarnation

Samurai Reincarnation

Samurai Reincarnation is a 1981 film directed by Kinji Fukasaku and starring Sonny Chiba. The film was based on the novel Makai Tensho....

film and the album Masters of Zen: Shakuhachi & Organ (together with Wolfgang Mitterer

Wolfgang Mitterer

Wolfgang Mitterer is an Austrian composer and musician .-Life and work:Wolfgang Mitterer studied with Otto Bruckner in Graz in 1977, and then from 1978 to 1983 at the Vienna University of Music he studied organ with Herbert Tachezi and composition with Heinrich Gattermeyer before working for a...

 at the organ) which he composed for his instrument. Through the seventies and eighties to the present he has led the shakuhachi world receiving innumerable honors, including Japanese Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Education Ministerial awards for his performances, recordings (numbering in the hundreds) and compositions. He currently serves as lecturer at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music

Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music

or is one of the oldest and most prestigious art schools in Japan. Located in Ueno Park, it also has facilities in Toride, Ibaraki, Yokohama, Kanagawa, and Kitasenju, Adachi, Tokyo...

 and as head of the Hozan-kai Shakuhachi Guild.

In 2002 he became designated Living National Treasure of Japan. In 2004, he was awarded a Purple Ribbon

Purple ribbon

A purple ribbon is worn to raise awareness for various causes, including:* Child Abuse* Anti-Gay Bullying*Pulmonary hypertension*Domestic violence*Pancreatic cancer*Animal abuse*Proportional representation voting system for UK elections...

.

Discography

• 1964 Music for Zen Meditation
• 1968 Oriental Bossa Sounds a Union of Koto, Shakuhachi and Big Band (琴, 尺八, ビッグ・バンドによるスタンダード・ボッサ)
• 1970 Hibiki - Contemporary Music for Japanese Traditional Instruments (響 - 和楽器による現代日本の音楽)
• 1974 Keden (怪顛)
• 1974 Kyorai (去来)
• 1975 Bamboo Suite (竹の組曲)
• 1975 Breath
• 1977 Ginkai
  Ginkai
  is a 1977 album released by Hōzan Yamamoto, featuring Western jazz instrumentalists such as bassist Gary Peacock, pianist Masabumi Kikuchi and drummer Hiroshi Murakami...
  
   (銀界)
• 1978 Kangetsu (寒月)
• 1985 Again and Again with Karl Berger
  Karl Berger
  Karl Hanns Berger is a musicologist with a PhD in Music Sociology, jazz composer, jazz vibraphone and piano player.-Biography:...
  
  
• 1986 Saichi
• 1986 Hozan Yamamoto vs Four Men
• 1990 Sankyoku
• 1996 Mugenkai - Ginkai II (夢幻界 - 銀界Ⅱ)
• 1996 Works of Hozan Yamamoto (山本邦山 作品集)
• 1997 Otoño
• 1998 Amigos
• 2000 Fascination of the Shakuhachi (尺八の魅力)