RICHARD EMMERT
Composer & Nohkan Flute

Born in Ohio in 1949, Emmert is an American who has studied, taught and performed Noh drama in Japan since 1973. A certified Kita school Noh instructor, he has studied all aspects of Noh performance with a special concentration in movement and music. A professor at Musashino Women's University in Tokyo where he teaches about Asian theatre and music, he also directs in Tokyo a semi-intensive, on-going Noh Training Project for English speakers. For the past eight summers as well, he has led an intensive three-week Noh Training Project in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania hosted by the Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble. Last year, he created a company of English-speaking Noh performers, known as Theatre Nohgaku, made up largely of his advanced students, whose first tour of At the Hawk's Well will be organized by Theatre of Yugen.

Over the years he has extended Noh projects at universities in Australia, England, India, Hong Kong and the United States, most of which have been with Kita Noh actor Matsui Akira. Emmert has composed, directed and performed three previous English Noh plays including Janine Beichman's Drifting Fires, Allan Marett's Eliza and William Butler Yeat's At the Hawk's Well, as well as arranged music for a fourth, Arthur Little's St. Francis with original music by Leonard Holvik. Selections from these appear on a CD entitled "Noh in English" published by Teichiku Records in Tokyo.