Bryan James

Bryan James was born in Auckland on the 23rd of August 1949. Educated at Auckland University 1968-72 (MA Hons, Anthropology); Canterbury 1975-6; Massey 1985-8 (Certificate of Japanese Studies) & 2000-present in final year of PGDipSLT; Christchurch College of Education 1975-76 (Diploma of Tchg in Speech-Language Therapy).

He is a registered music teacher of flute, saxophone and theory and plays soprano, alto and baritone saxophones, concert and alto flutes, and Japanese shakuhachi (an end-blown bamboo flute). Bryan studied traditional shakuhachi playing while living in Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan 1992-95. Since returning to NZ, James (also known as James Shinyo) has performed traditional Japanese music in Soyokaze (shakuhachi and koto), and flute ensemble music with Crofton Flute Ensemble also plays in jazz and improvisation ensembles. Featured in 2001 International Jazz Festival with quartet playing traditional Japanese music blended with jazz. Interested in music outside of the western art music tradition and extended techniques for woodwinds. As well as studying traditional music in Japan, had lessons on the Chinese flute (dizi) while at Hunan Normal University in Changsha, China Dec 1986-Jan 1987.

Currently Bryan is employed as a secondary school teacher of Japanese and French at Te Kura, New Zealand Correspondence School. Here, he is the curriculum leader for languages. He is married with 5 children.