Cornelius Boots is a woodwind composer-performer, bamboo shakuhachi master, breathing ambassador and educator.
Active internationally since 1990, his love affair with reeds and bamboo began at age 9. He is currently creating adventurous new music hymns & anthems in a style of expressive woodwind performance that can be called hermit blues or bamboo gospel. Boots is a relentless pioneer and recovering perfectionist who aims to be a fun-loving, professional woodwind wizard, and inspiring shakuhachi performer, contributing to the repertoire and evolution of certain woodwinds, first bass clarinet (1994-2015), and now shakuhachi (2001-present).
A top student of Grandmaster Michael Chikuzen Gould, Cornelius’ shakuhachi name is 深禅(Shinzen) deep Zen and he is a licensed shihan (master) in the dynamic Zen lineage of Watazumido. After a 30-year career of high-caliber jazz, classical, rock and experimental music activities on multiple woodwinds (including three music degrees from the renowned Jacobs School of Music, BM Clarinet ’97, BS Audio ’97, MM Jazz Studies ’99), Boots has now positioned himself at the crossroads of personal expression and divine revelation and only plays bamboo (jinashi) shakuhachi and its baritone brother, Taimu.
Previously, Boots was the founder and leader of Edmund Welles : the bass clarinet quartet and Sabbaticus Rex (easy listening for dinosaurs). He has contributed to film scores and collaborative projects, released over 20 albums as a leader and created dozens of original scores and instructional materials for his private lesson studio, including in shakuhachi calligraphic notation, a series of 27 etudes (mukyoku 無曲) for Taimu shakuhachi. He has won composition awards (International Clarinet Association, 1st Place, 2013; International Songwriting Competition, 2nd Place, 2006) and received grants and commissions from Chamber Music America and The Doris Duke Foundation, San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music, Areon Flutes, Crescent Duo and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Boots has performed concerts in Japan, festivals in Switzerland, Italy, Prague, San Francisco and Chicago and given lecture-performances at Esalen, S.A.N.D., San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Cal Arts, UCLA, Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Sanshinji Temple, University of Memphis, University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), University of Southern Oregon and beyond.
His two recent albums, Mountain Hermit’s Secret Wisdom (2013) and Holy Flute (Shakuhachi Unleashed Vol. I) (2017), reveal the yin and yang energies infusing his pioneering approach to this ancient bamboo meditation instrument, featuring virtuosic new solo compositions, rock, blues and metal cover song arrangements (Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Danzig, and more), and basic honkyoku 本曲on large flutes recorded in a cave in Nevada County, California.
Cornelius is a Vandoren performing artist, a Mujitsu Shakuhachi and Chikuzen Studios affiliate, and a member of the International Shakuhachi Society, the World Flute Society, Chamber Music America, New Music USA and Save the Redwoods. He is currently (since 2014) enrolled in the Masters of Divinity program at Buddha Dharma University where he also teaches a course on the Taoist rascal-sage Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi), The Way of Zhuangzi.