Tilopa, a one time social scientist who did research on Latin America, has studied quite a wide range of different musical instruments since early childhood (flute, violin, classical guitar, piano, tampoora, dillruba, svarmandal, santoor), but found his real love about 20 years ago when he met with the kyotaku and his flute-master Koku Nishimura in Kumamoto/Japan.
Since that time he has studied the traditional 'honkyoku' zen-music with his master and says that this is a never ending process even though he is playing the same songs over and over again.
At the same time he has been experimenting with combining the kyotaku with other western and eastern instruments.
He lives with his wife and a multitude of her paintings in an old farmhouse in the countryside of Bavaria/Germany where he is working as a kyotaku-teacher and maker and also as a t'ai chi teacher.
About the Japanese zen-flute:
Tilopa is playing the so called kyotaku, also known as Japanese zen-flute or long shakuhachi. This instrument has a pentatonic tuning and has 5 holes like the shakuhachi, but has a much deeper and more mellow sound than the shakuhachi.
It used to be played more often in the old days of Japan, but was more and more replaced by the shakuhachi during the twentieth century.
In the same process it changed from an instrument of meditation that was mainly used by a certain buddhist sect of wandering monks (komuso), who played traditional religious pieces (honkyoku) only, to an instrument of more 'worldly' use played with other instruments and in different kinds of music.
Tilopa's master, Koku Nishimura, was one of the first to revive the old tradition of kyotaku.
For a few years now, Tilopa has been giving occasional concerts with Sangeet P. Sieben. Sieben is a gifted guitarist who started out with jazz and rock music years ago, picked up other instruments on his musical life journey and now feels very much at home with ethno-, world- and meditation-music. One of the results of this extraordinary meeting is the CD 'Pictures of Silence', which is a live recording of several improvisational sessions at an art exhibition in Cologne/Germany.
