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We had a great time performing at Taiko Jam 09 with Kishin Daiko, Las Vegas Kaminari and Portland taiko.  It always feels great to perform in front of your peers and mentors in the North American taiko community.  Maz and I were lucky enough to perform with the Kenny Endo Taiko Ensemble at the first Taiko Jam back in 1997 and it was great to be back on the same stage with our own group twelve years later.  Also wanted to give a shout out our guest artists Patrick Graham and Kaoru Watanabe.  It’s always great to get a chance to perform with Patrick and Kaoru and they both add a lot to our music.

Thank you to all of our participants at the Summer Taiko institute.  We had a great group of thirty two enthusiastic taiko nuts to teach for three days.  We threw a lot at them from a new composition, to workshops on timing, form, dynamics and articulation.  Participants ranged from the very young to the young at heart and came from as far away as Toronto and Philadelphia.  Great to see how the taiko community continues to grow!

One of the particpants Carrie has blogged about her experience including videos from the final performance!  Tanya, Joy and Beth from Odaiko New England have also blogged about their STI experiences at the Odaiko New England website.

A HUGE thank you goes out to all of the organizers, volunteers and participants at the 2009 North American Taiko Conference!  Darren you are amazing thank you for all of your work and support!  Yuri thank you for all of your work on making Taiko Jam ’09 a success.  Janet, Jen and Terry thank you for all of your work on making the conference happen.  And last but definitely not least a huge that you to all of the volunteers who helped coordinate and host all the Taiko Conference events from workshops, to performances to receptions.