By Zuri Wilson

Fabio Rambelli, a professor in the departments of Religious Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at UC Santa Barbara, is passionate about bringing Japanese music to the university, fostering openness and diversity with every note.

Fabio Rambelli, a UCSB professor in Religious Studies and East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies, creates opportunities for students to expand their horizons.

He recently organized “The Transcultural Exploratorium: Neuro Music and Japanese Culture,” a concert with composer Gene Coleman that exposed UCSB and the larger Santa Barbara community to Japanese culture – specifically, the shō.

The shō is a ceremonial instrument with a lot of history and mythology, says Rambelli. It has been used for more than a thousand years in the Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines of Japan, which is the focus of Rambelli’s field of research.

Rambelli first started studying Japanese music at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. After graduating as a first-generation college student, he began teaching about Japanese religions in the United States.

Captivated by Japanese religion and culture, Rambelli then moved to Japan to teach at Sapporo University. There, he started learning how to play the shō and other instruments used in gagaku, the music of the Japanese Imperial Court. After teaching in Japan for 11 years, Rambelli was hired as the International Shinto Foundation Chair in Shinto Studies at UCSB, where he has been teaching since 2010.

Rambelli recently sat down for an interview to discuss the recent neuro music event and how he introduces students to Japanese culture.

Q: The recent “Transcultural Exploratorium” concert was co-sponsored by a host of UCSB departments, including Music, the Library, and the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind. Why was that important to you?

A: I’m not in the Music Department, which would be the most obvious place for this type of collaboration … What is nice about UCSB in particular is that it’s possible to collaborate across departments. With this event, multiple departments and units were involved. Many universities are not like this. When you talk about religion and culture, there are so many different components. It’s not just ideas or prayers or rituals; you have music, art, food. You have all these other components that you cannot really address within one single department or one single discipline.

Professor Rambelli playing the shō, a Japanese bamboo mouth organ with a lot of history and Shinto religious ritual associated with it.

Q: What motivates you to host Japanese music and culture on campus?

A: I see my job here at UCSB as not only teaching or doing research for myself, but also creating possibilities for students and faculty to expand their own horizons and interests. It’s a lot of work but I think it is important, and it’s something that I enjoy doing, so this is one aspect.

The other aspect is that Japanese Studies here at UCSB has been taught for 60 years. This is part of the academic culture on campus. It’s part of the curriculum. So, I want to make a contribution by doing events that others don’t do.

Q: What interests you about Japan?

A: What interested me about Japan is that it sounded like a different culture, but not too different from what I was used to in Europe. We tend to see Japan as very exotic, very different. And after living there a while, it’s really not. I mean, to me, there are more exotic things here in the United States. Japan is similar in a way. You have cities with their own traditions, their own culture. You have the importance of the family. You have the importance of food. You have a certain aesthetic sense and sensibility that resonates with me. This is what I was looking for.

Q: What intrigues you about the shō specifically?

A: What attracts me to the shō is the materiality of it. It takes a year to make, and then to have the pipes and all the bamboo ready takes 10 to 15 years. It’s a very long term project and it’s not something that can be mass produced easily. It’s unique. There have been no improvements on that instrument for 13 centuries and it’s made with the same materials in the same way. It’s kind of a precious thing because there is so much history that comes with it.

Q: Have you faced any challenges bringing Japanese music, specifically the shō, to UCSB?

Taiko and Kakko are two types of Japanese drums that UCSB professor Fabio Rambelli and composer Gene Coleman played at their recent UCSB concert.

A: Classical Japanese music is similar to some forms of Western contemporary music with a lot of dissonances, so maybe many people don’t like it. But some people do, probably more than we think. Whenever I’ve done events with music, I’ve always had a lot of people. We’re talking about 250 people, not 5,000. But to me, in a town like this, that’s a big thing. And my sense is that the people who have open ears and open minds recognize the beauty.

I think that not enough people actively seek music that they don’t know about. The algorithms, like Spotify, give you recommendations for the music that you have already listened to. They rarely challenge you. But I’ve noticed that if you start listening to a lot of different music, it makes you more open to all kinds of ideas, lifestyles, and challenges. Music enters your body and you have to deal with it. You cannot close your ears. Music that is different makes you think about diversity, it makes you think about other cultures. You change because of it.

Q: How do you think your initiatives are impacting the UCSB community?

A: More people are getting exposed to things and they aren’t just rejecting them. To me, that’s a success. I see part of my job as a teacher is really to plant seeds. Some seeds become plants sooner rather than later. Some seeds don’t. But the more seeds I plant, the more chances I have to grow a nice garden with a lot of flowers.

UCSB professor Fabio Rambelli and composer Gene Coleman after performing in “The Transcultural Exploratorium: Neuro Music and Japanese Culture” event last month.

Zuri Wilson is a third year UCSB student majoring in both Film and Media Studies and Black Studies. She conducted this interview for her Writing Program course Digital Journalism.