Riley Lee is a shakuhachi (bamboo flute) player.
He has been performing worldwide since 1974 in such venues as the Sydney Opera House, Boston Symphony Hall, Espace Cardin (Paris) and the Roundhouse Theatre (London), and smaller venues too numerous to count.
He began playing the shakuhachi in Japan in 1971. He studied with Ichizan Hoshida II, Chikuho Sakai II and Katsuya Yokoyama, three of the most respected teachers of the 20th century. In 1980, he became the first non-Japanese to attain dai shihan (Grand Master) ranking in shakuhachi.
Riley also became the first non-Japanese professional taiko player in the early 1970s, as a founding member of Sado no Kuni Ondekoza (now called Kodo).
Riley’s studies with traditional teachers in Japan have included such peculiar methods as practicing barefoot in the snow, blowing into his flute under waterfalls and in blizzards until icicles form at its end, and running the Boston Marathon and then playing taiko drums at the finish line.
He has soloed with numerous symphony orchestras, and has collaborated with performers of many musical instruments and genres, including jazz ensembles and string quartets. He has toured with dance troupes such as the Sydney Dance Company and Pilobolus.
Riley has a PhD from Sydney University in ethnomusicology.
Riley started teaching breathing workshops in the late 1980s, and has since refined and expanded his repertoire of exercises, gleaned from a number of sources and from his long and focused relationship with shakuhachi. His workshops last from one hour to several days, and single sessions have been attended by as many as two thousand people.
Each year, Riley tours extensively in Australia, USA, and in Europe, for solo concerts and collaborations, and in various music festivals. In Australia alone, he has performed, often numerous times at the following festivals:
Woodford FF, National FF, Australia Chamber Music Festival, Port Fairy World Music Festival, WOMAD (Womadelaide), Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival, Queensland Festival, WA Country Music Festival, Port Fairy Music Festival, Tyalgum Music Festival, Bellingen Music Festival, The Denmark Festival of Voices, Huntington Music Festival, Blackheath Chamber Music Festival, and others.
Riley’s latest solo recording is Breath of the Earth, an acclaimed 3CD set of the music of Hildegard. By the end of 2022, his music has enjoyed nearly 40 million streams on Spotify.