Seattle composer Byron Au Yong and Tokyo musician Christopher Yohmei Blasdel met at the International House of Japan and have worked on a number of musical projects since 1996. Their site-responsive performance at the Tokyo Art Museum designed by Tadao Ando was praised by audience members as "inventive and stimulating."

"Au Yong's music added to the panic." The Seattle Times

Au Yong creates ceremonial musical events scored for Asian, European and hand-made instruments. His work has been performed in Canada, China, England, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the United States. Projects include Piao Zhu: Flying Bamboo, YIJU: Songs of Dislocation, and Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas.

"Blasdel's shakuhachi performance is visionary and played from the heart." Hogaku no Tomo

Christopher Yohmei Blasdel began shakuhachi and studies of Japanese music in 1972 with National Treasure Goro Yamaguchi. In 1984, he received the professional name "Yohmei" from Yamaguchi as well as a graduate degree in ethnomusicology from Tokyo National University. Blasdel has performed, taught and lectured throughout China, Thailand, Europe, North America, Mexico, India, Malaysia and the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Author of numerous books and articles, his Rennyo Award-winning book A Shakuhachi Odyssey, written in Japanese, is published by Kawade Shobo Shinsha.

"Blasdel's work is filled with the long, floating lines so graceful to his instrument, with the slow mellowing of tone and the punctuation of the sharp initial attack which levels into a climbing arc; the musical equivalent of soaring." The Japan Times