Vazquez Scholarship Recipient Speaks About Scholarship

From the last Alejandro Vazquez memorial scholarship recipient. Pablo Acosta. You can apply now for the next round of free shakuhachi lessons.

When I was just starting my Shakuhachi journey I also began to fall in love with the Japanese culture and its language. That's how I began to discover a lot of content on YouTube about all these things and I came across Renzoh Flutes, Sensei Shawn's channel. A short time later I told my old teacher about this channel on YouTube and I was impressed when he said to me with a laugh “He’s my Sensei ''. I just thought "Wow, my teacher's teacher, how crazy!" Shortly after, my teacher Alejandro Vázquez began a great and unknown journey from which he will never return and I couldn’t study with him anymore. I felt worried and sad knowing that I couldn’t study Shakuhachi anymore, since it was a musical and cultural heritage that my teacher left me, in addition to music being the main means by which our strong bond had developed, however, as if It would have been Alejandro's will, Shawn opened a scholarship in his memory and without expecting it I was one of those selected, so with a great mixture of joy, emotion and disbelief, I began to study with my teacher’s teacher Shawn Renzoh Head.

The Alejandro Vázquez scholarship has been for me not only a musical experience but also an emotional and cultural one. It was an introduction to a great world for which today I have a lot of love and infinite passion: Japan and Shakuhachi. Shawn's teachings have greatly improved my performance on the instrument, but not only that, He has also transformed my vision towards Shakuhachi, guiding me through the spirituality of the instrument, in addition to all the historical context of the songs and teaching me to feel each piece.

What I have learned in this time goes beyond how to play the notes or how to play a piece, I have learned to feel the Shakuhachi and use it as an extension of myself, and the lessons have ranged from the historical, technical, practical, to the emotional and spiritual of songs and performance techniques. It has been an experience that has changed the way I see music and I have begun to understand much more about myself through the instrument thanks to Shawn's teachings.

In addition, my achievements during the time of the scholarship have been many, and one of which I am very proud of is that of having been able to play live for an audience and have transmitted the sound of Shakuhachi and my passion for all this to other people. Thanks to the scholarship today I feel better and different when I start playing, and I have been able to play for my fellow Shakuhachi students and for different audiences (I have only given 2 small concerts). Thanks to my teacher Alejandro Vázquez I was able to have Shawn's guidance on my Shakuhachi Journey, and I don't think I could have had someone better as a guide.

Today I just want to say that I plan to continue on this and I am very intrigued to discover the nature of the Shakuhachi and its sounds, the culture that surrounds it, the history that comes with it and discover myself through the bamboo. I have understood all this thanks to my studies with Shawn, he gave me the key and I opened the door of this infinite world that I want to travel as far as possible.

~Pablo A.