November 15 • 4:30 pm

artist bios

Nancy Beckman studied the shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) at Myoanji Zen temple in Kyoto from 1972-1976 where she learned the traditional solo Zen Buddhist meditational pieces.

She received her shakuhachi name Fukushin and the license to teach shakuhachi from Myoanji. She continued studying shakuhachi, along with ethnomusicology and Japanese translation at Wesleyan University.

In the 1980's, she translated “Kudan,” a short story by Uchida Hyakken in New Directions42, created an artist’s book (Bioordology) and began working on a project interviewing unconventional Japanese people. She also used her knowledge of Japanese language and photography in site-specific performance art pieces, receiving an MA in InterArts from San Francisco State University in 1987. She went on to design photographic masks and visuals for theatre companies in San Francisco.

Beginning in 1989, she participated in "intuitive improvisation" on the shakuhachi with Una Nakamura on vocals and percussion, for meditative performances and sound blessings. She has been inspired by studying Deep Listening with composer Pauline Oliveros and the Four Fold Way with Angeles Arrien.

She is based in Berkeley, California and teaches the Myoan shakuhachi repertoire. She became a Certified Music Practitioner in the Music for Healing and Transition Program, and has played shakuhachi and lyre for hospice. Currently she improvises and plays experimental music, composes improvisational sound meditations, and combines her love of the unexpected and light-hearted social activism in site-specific events. She is a member of the ensembles the Cardew Choir, Gusty Winds May Exist (with Tom Bickley), Dream Down Duvet (with Viv Corringham) and the Sisters of the Sound Continuum.

TOM BICKLEY listens to the world always hoping to hear more and more fully. He enjoys a wide range of music and finds particular inspiration in the music of Oliveros, Cage, Stockhausen, Landini, Machaut, European plainchant and Japanese gagaku and shōmyo.

He grew up in the semitropical soundscape of Houston, sojourned in Washington, DC (studying music, religion, and library and information science) and came to California as a composer in residence at Mills College in Oakland. He performs using recorder (and was described by Early Music America as “one of the most important players specializing in new music for [this] instrument.”), EWI, voice and electronics, teaches music at the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training, Deep Listening courses for the Center for Deep Listening at Renssalaer Polytechnic Institute. |

His academic library career included service with the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the National Endowment for the Arts, and California State University East Bay (as their Performing and Visual Arts, Philosophy, and Political Science Librarian). He holds the Certificate in Deep Listening (1998) from Pauline Oliveros.

With Monique Buzzarté, he co-edited "The Anthology of Essays on Deep Listening" (2012). He performs with David Barnett in the recorder duo Three Trapped Tigers, with shakuhachi player Nancy Beckman as Gusty Winds May Exist, with the Doug Van Nort Electro-Acoustic Orchestra, with Viv Corringham and Nancy Beckman as Dream Down Duvet, Gachapon with Dean Santomieri, Cindy Webster, and Nancy Beckman, and co-founded, directs the Cornelius Cardew Choir. He servves as  Recording Reviews Editor for the American Recorder Society's American Recorder Magazine, and is active in the Music Library Association.

He lives with his spouse Nancy Beckman, and cats 春ちゃん (Haru-chan) and 光ちゃん(Hikari-chan) in Berkeley. He adds: "The Tiger Garage [虎のガレージ] is our music studio, named for the wonderful orange tabby cats, including our beloved, departed cat 虎さん (Tora-san), on our block, aka "The Orange Cat Club" [オレンジ猫会] .