Kiku Day is a shakuhachi player and ethnomusicologist born in Tokyo and raised in Copenhagen, now living at the Vækstcenteret meditation centre in central Jutland. She spent 11 years studying under master Okuda Atsuya in Tokyo and is his Zensabō style's representative in Europe, while also holding an external lectureship in ethnomusicology at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus. Alongside the classical honkyoku tradition, she actively commissions and performs new works for the jinashi shakuhachi - the raw, untreated bamboo flute - with pieces written for her by composers including Roxanna Panufnik, Takahashi Yūji and Mogens Christensen.
Kiku Day performed an improvisation concert at Copenhagen Jazz Festival on July 12, 2025 at Råhuset together with Bolivian-Danish flutist Flavia Huarachi.
Kiku Day participated in World Shakuhachi Festival 2025 in Texas, USA (April 17-20), organized by Texas A&M University.
In January 2025, Kiku Day presented an academic paper on the shakuhachi's role during the Russo-Japanese War at ICTMD's world conference in Wellington, New Zealand.
On May 26, 2024, Kiku Day passed the menkyo kaiden ceremony at Myōan-ji temple in Kyoto and is thus authorized to accept students in the Myōan Kyōkai association.
In November 2024, Kiku Day recorded shakuhachi music for an anime film in Paris together with pianist Quentin Sirjacq.
Two Japanese bamboo flutes meet in musical dialogue between Japan and Denmark, with shinobue master Yasukazu Kano and shakuhachi artist Kiku Day, plus guest performances featuring dance.
Traditional Japanese flute and dance concert at Himmelbjerggården. Workshop from 15:00, concert at 18:30 with shinobue and shakuhachi musicians plus dance.