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Dr James Franklin, born in Australia, started playing piano at the age of 9; later, he studied classical Western music at the University of Sydney and trained as a composer. He lived in Europe for several years, where he became involved with electronic music as well as acoustic composition. On returning to Australia, he met shakuhachi grand master Riley Lee, and in 1988, Lee and Franklin recorded a first album together; the start of a series of fruitful collaborations, including recordings, commissioned compositions, and concerts. Following this, Franklin decided to learn shakuhachi himself, and commenced studying with Lee. In 1996, Franklin continued his shakuhachi studies with Katsuya Yokoyama, and in December 1996, received the title of Shihan from him.

Born in Sydney in 1959, Dr James Franklin holds the degrees of Bachelor of Music (with Honours) and Master of Music from the University of Sydney, and a Phd. He has studied with Peter Sculthorpe, Milko Keleman and Ton de Leeuw. Franklin has himself taught at the University of Sydney, and at the University of Western Sydney's Nepean Campus. He is also a performer on shakuhachi.

Franklin has received a number of awards for his compositions, including the Makinson Prize in 1980, the 1981 Donald Peart Memorial Award, and the Young Composers' Orchestral Award in 1982. In 1990 his score for the multi-media piece Japanischer Garten received the award for Best Original Soundtrack at the 4th Munich International Multi-Media Festival. The entire work was awarded first prize in the art/entertainment category, and was selected to represent Europe at the International Multi-Media Festival in Dallas, USA in 1991. Franklin has been the recipient of commissions from such performers and groups as Riley Lee, Chin Kham Yoke, Ulrike Flaig, Human Veins Dance Theatre, Kinetic Energy Performing Arts, and Southern Crossings. He now divides his time between Australia and Europe.

Speciality: Shakuhachi
Born: 1959
Email: dr_jim_franklin@hotmail.com
Homepage: http://www.bambus-atem.de/hinweise/veranstaltungen.html

Teachers:

Lee, Dr Riley Kelly
Yokoyama Katsuya

Albums released:

	Abundance Abundance is an acoustic collaboration between two talented multi–instrumentalists in which they attempt to blend influences of all the cultures whose music they have encountered and studied during the course of their careers.
	Butsuga Recorded on location in a Japanese garden, a place where the harmony of the natural world becomes self–evident, the music was conceived and presented as a journey through the garden both in space and time.
	Hearing Stillness Traditional Honkyoku
	Moon Road to Dawn Moon Road to Dawn, expresses itself through fluid interchange of tonal structures, timbral devices and performing techniques, focusing largely on the non–Western instruments, but also incorporating clarinet and saxophone.
	Water Spirits - Honoka Water Spirits resulted from the same period of intense collaboration between Satsuki Odamura and James Ashley Franklin as the dawning of Honoka. The titles of each track, as well as that of the recording itself, reflect the feeling which underlies all the music: the sounds, sights and textures of water, found in different landscapes and manifestations, from streams in the mountains to noble coastlines.

Track	Album
Kirisame   (Listen)	Water Spirits - Honoka
Lonely Headlands   (Listen)	Water Spirits - Honoka
Mountain Stream   (Listen)	Water Spirits - Honoka

Year	Title	Kanji	Alternate Title
	Dewdrop Pearls
	Kirisame		Misty Rain
	Lonely Headlands
	Mountain Stream
	Three Portals
1990	Song of the Mist