The Shakuhachi Symposium is an academic conference with on the one hand, a narrow focus on the Japanese bamboo flute shakuhachi, but which, on the other, is broadly open to any research approaches to the instrument from differing academic fields. The Symposium will take place at SOAS on 30 July from 9:30 am. There will be three panels focusing on the history of shakuhachi, contemporary issues and Zen Buddhist relations and properties of the instrument. We will be honoured by the presence of two keynote speakers: Prof. Shimura Satoshi from Osaka University of Fine Arts: ‘Is the Shakuhachi evolving? The soul of the two types of shakuhachi in the contemporary shakuhachi world and the paths of the four different shakuhachi’ and former Head of Music Department Dr. David W. Hughes: ‘My personal shakuhachi journey to the world of folk song (min’yō)’.