David Wheeler, shakuhachi performer, teacher and writer on Japanese music, will be presenting a shakuhachi recital June 19 at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall.

The recital, entitled "Shakuhachi Dream," follows his sold-out recital performance two years ago at Casals Hall. Like the previous concert, "Shakuhachi Dream" offers not only top-quality Japanese classical music, theater and dance in a superb hall with full English program notes for the foreign audience, but also, well, a chance to share in a dream.

Dreaminess is certainly not unknown to audience members of the traditional Japanese performing arts. The selective somnolence of the noh theater is a good example. The dreamlike quality of certain scenes from mugen (dream) noh results from the performers suspending themselves -- and the audience -- between worlds, allowing, through poetry, dance and music, a brief glimpse of the spiritual.

This kind of dream is not a soporific dulling of the senses but instead a vehicle for heightened awareness. Through the dream-drama we approach the unknown worlds which lie right beyond the threshold of our physical perception; worlds which are normally attainable only through austere religious discipline or the sudden experience of intensely powerful emotions like love or loss.

If the dream is a vehicle for slipping between the mundane and spiritual realms, then the shakuhachi is indeed one of Japan's dreamiest instruments. The haunting sounds of an expert player like Wheeler have the ability to transport the listener into a meditative, pensive state. Not surprisingly, the shakuhachi has been used by Buddhist komuso monks for centuries as a means for the attainment of stillness and inner peace.

One of the most famous of all shakuhachi pieces, "Koku Reibo," is said to have been inspired through a dream: The monk Kichiku, falling asleep after hours of intense meditation on top of a lonely mountain, had a vision of himself floating on a misty sea in a small punt. The sounds of a wondrous melody came to his ears, which he remembered and wrote down upon awakening.

The program for Wheeler's "Shakuhachi Dream," which includes "Koku Reibo," reflects his own musical longings as well as the dreamlike qualities of traditional Japanese music.

The first half of the program is an original dance-drama influenced by many of Japan's performing arts traditions, "Yume, Sore mo Ai (A Dream of Love)." In this work, choreographer Kikuhiro Otowa aimed for a free and creative context in which traditional performers could collaborate.

"Yume, Sore mo Ai," adapted from the noh play "Michimori," follows the form of mugen noh, in which the main story is enacted within the protagonist's dream, a play within an play.

The play begins as an old fisherman (played by Kikuhiro Otowa) spies a komuso (Wheeler) playing his shakuhachi as a religious offering on a rock-strewn, stormy beach near the Naruto maelstroms, on a summer evening. When asked, the komuso recounts the tale of the warrior who fell in battle at Suma, Taira no Michimori, and his lover Kozaisho, who cast herself into the sea at Naruto to join him in the next world.

In a dream, the old fisherman, who is actually an embodiment of Michimori, is joined by the ghost of Kozaisho (Yuka Mizuki). They relive their past romance, to the accompaniment of shamisen (Mumonsai) and fue (transverse flute, Sanzaemon Takara).

The second part of Wheeler's recital features, along with "Koku Reibo," the stunning jiuta work for shamisen and koto "Sasa no Tsuyu (Dewdrops on a Bamboo Leaf)." A type of bamboo, sasa is also the expression used when offering drink, thus becoming an epithet for sake, which the lyrics of "Sasa no Tsuyu" celebrate.

They start out by noting that Confucius, who admonishes us to drink well, was no doubt a great drinker, while the Buddha, whose teachings warn of the many sins and temptations of sake, probably could not hold his drink very well. The ensuing instrumental parts suggest cheerful drinking bouts, with much lively musical repartee.

Wheeler's accompanists for "Sasa no Tsuyu," Akiko Fujii (koto and voice) and Hirokazu Fujii (shamisen and voice) are two of the best young performers active today. The Fujiis and Wheeler have performed together over almost two decades and were part of an eight-concert tour of the U.S. in February and March of this year.

David Wheeler "Shakuhachi Dream" 2 p.m. June 19 at Hamarikyu Asahi Hall, an eight-minute walk from Tsukiji Station (exit 1 or 2), Hibiya Line, or Higashi Ginza Station (exit 6), Toei Asakusa Line. Admission 5,000 yen (includes one drink), 5,500 yen for parent-child tickets. Contact David Wheeler (03) 3721-9693, e-mail [email protected] for info/tickets.

Also June 19, a special program at Tokyo Opera City concert hall brings together leading lights of several hogaku genres on a theme based on the "Tale of Heike" -- the evanescence of worldly glory.

Conceived and directed by leading nagauta shamisen performer Masataro Imafuji, the concert brackets the classic nagauta song "Gojobashi" between two new works on Heike themes, "Itsukushima" and "Kenreimon-in Tokuko."

The three pieces come from the beginning and the end of the tale, from when the Heike are riding high and their Genji enemies are in hiding, to the sad aftermath when only the dowager Empress Kenreimon-in remains, praying in her mountain hermitage for the souls of her lost Heike brethren. In "Itsukushima" the Heike leader Kiyomori suppresses a coup and cements his control of the Kyoto government.

"Gojobashi" is the ever-popular episode in which the giant warrior-monk Benkei encounters the Genji hero Yoshitsune, still a teenager, on the Gojo bridge one night in Kyoto, and challenges him to fight. When the slim youth easily defeats him, Benkei becomes his follower for life.

The two new works make use of not only the standard kabuki orchestra but non-kabuki instruments, such as the koto, biwa and sho, as well. The story is illuminated with stage designs by award-winning designer Setsu Asakura, whose credits include numerous stage plays and operas, as well as the hit film "Sharaku."