Cornelius Shinzen Boots
深禅
Born 1974
Composer & Shakuhachi
cb@corneliusboots.com
http://www.corneliusboots.com/
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Cornelius Boots (MM, Shihan) is a woodwind composer-performer, jinashi shakuhachi master, breathing ambassador and educator. Active internationally since 1990, Boots' love affair with reeds and bamboo began at age 9. His shakuhachi name is 深禅 (Shinzen) deep Zen and he is a licensed shihan (master) in the dynamic Zen lineage of Watazumido, the first student of Grandmaster Michael Chikuzen Gould to have earned a Shihan (2013). After a 30-year career of high-caliber jazz, classical, rock and experimental music activities on multiple woodwinds (including three music degrees from the Jacobs School of Music, BM Clarinet '97, BS Audio '97, MM Jazz Studies '99), Boots has positioned himself at the crossroads of personal expression and divine revelation. Influenced by forest ecology and wood elementals, he now only plays bamboo shakuhachi as a living art form evolving from the depths of contemplative Zen Taoist practice, specializing in jinashi and large-bore shakuhachi. Audiences can expect Buddhist nature hymns, original blues compositions and rock anthems on standard & Taimu (bass) shakuhachi: bamboo gospel. Previously, Boots was the founder and leader of Edmund Welles: the bass clarinet quartet and Sabbaticus Rex (easy listening for dinosaurs). He has contributed to film scores and collaborative projects, released over 20 albums as a leader and created dozens of original scores and instructional materials for his private lesson studio, including in shakuhachi calligraphic notation, a series of 27 etudes (mukyoku 無曲) for Taimu shakuhachi. He has won composition awards (International Clarinet Association, 1st Place, 2013; International Songwriting Competition, 2nd Place, 2006) and received grants and commissions from Chamber Music America and The Doris Duke Foundation, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, Areon Flutes, Crescent Duo and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Boots has performed concerts in Japan, festivals in Switzerland, Italy, Prague, San Francisco and Chicago and given lecture-performances at Esalen, S.A.N.D., San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Cal Arts, UCLA, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Sanshinji Temple, University of Memphis, University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), University of Southern Oregon and beyond. His two recent albums, Mountain Hermit's Secret Wisdom (2013) and Holy Flute (Shakuhachi Unleashed Vol. I) (2017), reveal the yin and yang energies infusing his pioneering approach to this ancient bamboo meditation instrument, featuring virtuosic new solo compositions, rock, blues and metal cover song arrangements (Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Danzig, and more), and basic honkyoku 本曲 on large flutes recorded in a cave in Nevada County, California. Cornelius is a Vandoren performing artist, a Mujitsu Shakuhachi and Chikuzen Studios affiliate, and a member of the International Shakuhachi Society, the World Flute Society, Chamber Music America, New Music USA and Save the Redwoods.
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Teachers Students
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Albums
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Sabbaticus Rex Album by Sabbaticus Rex. This is sound, but not music. It is primordial easy-listening for dinosaurs: slowly shifting elemental improvisations from fat flutes and big gongs. Two full length discs, completely acoustic: shakuhachi, taimu shakuhachi, and gongs. |
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Bamboo Rising (Shakuhachi Unleashed, Vol. II) The hot breath of Life––as Music. Solo classic rock shakuhachi. Virtuosic nature hymns & anthems. Offering up the breadth of big bamboo's breath-powered musicality. Continuing the Shakuhachi Unleashed Series that started with Holy Flute, Bamboo Rising presents a unique style of advanced, expressive solo shakuhachi performance: hermit blues, bamboo gospel. Original compositions and classic rock and metal arrangements--with the mojo intact. This album is dedicated to Son House. |
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Holy Flute Hard rock and sacred nature music are brought together in the voice of the solo flute: the Japanese Zen shakuhachi. This bamboo flute is known for being evocative and provocative, ethereal, and very difficult to play. The breadth of its breath-powered musicality is brought to you in Holy Flute. This album combines the energy and structure of carefully chosen rock songs--originals and covers--with the inspiring, one-of-a-kind sounds of the shakuhachi. |
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Mountain Hermit's Secret Wisdom Bass Zen bamboo flutes recorded in a cave. Shakuhachi flute. Contemplative nature music inspired by Zen and Taoist philosophy, breath cultivation and the texture of the living moment. Disc includes files of notation, photos, artwork, and extended notes. |
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Mukyoku: Compositions for Giant Zen Bamboo Flutes Renegade Nature Music. These large-bore, raw bamboo flutes evoke the breathy sound of sacred mysteries and create a connection to primordial states of consciousness: the trees singing, the mud chanting, the cave yawning, the sage wandering. |
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Sabbaticus Rex II Album by Sabbaticus Rex. Walking the razor's edge between the mystical and the scientific, sabbaticus rex II archives the live creation of spontaneous sound structures from bass bamboo shakuhachi flutes, overtone gongs, and the one-and-only Bazantar. |
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Sacred Root: Kung Fu Flute & Buddhist Blues (Shakuhachi Unleashed Vol. III) The final album of an adventurous 3-album cycle showcasing new "blues, rock and beyond" repertoire for solo jinashi shakuhachi and Taimu (bass shakuhachi). Beauty, grit, energy and depth. Featuring original compositions alongside kung fu movie music from Bruce Lee and David Carradine films, actual blues songs from Elmore James and Junior Kimbrough, some Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Primus, Fishbone and more. Features the compositional namesake of the Black Earth Shakuhachi School. |
Tracks Recorded
Composed or Arranged
| Shakuhachi Compositions | |||
| Title | Kanji | Year | Alternate Title |
| AH & OM take the Stage | 2009-2010 |
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| Chaos Return | 2009-2010 |
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| Cosmographer's Daughter, The | 2009-2010 |
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| Demiurge Takes Form, The | 2009-2010 |
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| Doppelganger | 2009-2010 |
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| Half of the Beast | 2009-2010 |
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| In Which the Sound Comtemplates You... | 2009-2010 |
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| Mysteries of Harmony and Focus, The | 2009-2010 |
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| Other, The | 2009-2010 |
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| Purgatory | 2009-2010 |
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| Pythias Dualis | 2009-2010 |
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| Shakthamunki | 2009-2010 |
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| Shunyata (Boots) | 2009-2010 |
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| Sleeping Dragon | 2009-2010 |
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| Theme of the Mendicant | 2009-2010 |
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| Tree & the Maiden, The | 2009-2010 |
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| Hymn to the She-Dragon of the Deep | 2012 |
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| Greening of Mount Subasio, The | 2014 |
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| Taste of Nothing | 2014 |
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| Baby Bear Drinks Tea | 2015 |
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| Death of the Samurai | 2015 |
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| Generuslu | 2015 |
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| Year of the Goat God of the Flute | 2015 |
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| Devil Points, The | 2016 |
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| Snake Dreams of Dragon | 2016 |
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| Green Swampy Water | 2017 |
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| Beautiful Demon | 2018 |
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| Black Earth | 2018 |