Dr Kiku Day, PhD ethnomusicology and jinashi shakuhachi player from Copenhagen, Denmark with Japanese and American background. She plays the traditional honkyoku repertoire in Zensabo style, non-idiomatic improvisation and comtemporary music. She studied honkyoku repertoire of the shakuhachi playing Buddhist monks komusō with Okuda Atsuya in Tokyo, Japan for 11 years before she returned to Europe to study ethnomusicology. She has her BA Honours and PhD from SOAS; University of London. During her studies Day became interested in contemporary music and improvisation, which led her to study performance at Mills College, USA on shakuhachi. She is present Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research interests are among others practice research, contemporary use of the shakuhachi, online music communities, race and ethnicity in music. Composers, such as Roxanna Panufnik (UK), Yuji Takahashi (JP), Frank Denyer (UK), Yumi Hara Cawkwell (UK/JP), Vytautas Germanavičius (LT), Marisol Jimenez (MX), Mogens Christensen (DK) have written for her. She has performed with performers such as Fred Frith, Joanna MacGregor, Carlos Zíngaro, Mats Gustafsson, Thurston Moore and Joëlle Léandre, and as a soloist with Odense Symphony Orchestra and with the Nonsuch Choir. Day is a founding member and served 10 years as chairperson for the European Shakuhachi Society. Day served as the chair of the Executive Committee for the 7th World Shakuhachi Festival in London.