Thanks to Ze Sen and the members of Kazan Taiko for a lot of bon-taiko fun on Thursday. We did a bit of basics, learned Helio, and then individuals arranged short solos. Thank you everyone!
Winnepeg taiko player, Margaret McKenty, came to LA for three days of lessons. We spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday working on shime technique, upright basics, and slant form and movement. Thank you for all the fun, Margaret!
My shamisen friend, Yasoyo Sensei, helped to organize a fundraiser to raise money for repairs to the tea room at Koyasan Temple. I played a very short excerpt from a shamisen piece I’m preparing for my teacher’s next visit in March, and my recent solo slant-drum stuff. Thank you to all the enthusiastic audience members who made the event a success!
My sister’s family is so inspiring! Check out this article about Dan’s work as elementary-school principal. After switching the entire school to computers running free software (gnu/linux), he made the school solar-powered and instituted healthy, local, home-made foods in the lunch program. Go Dan Go!
Our next performance is in Carlsbad for the Museum of Making Music on Saturday November 19th at 7:00pm. As a part of this performance we will also be doing educational outreach programs for some of the schools in the Carlsbad area. Come check out our performance if you are in the area!
We’re headed to Eugene, OR for a juried showcase at the 31st Annual Northwest Booking Conference. Our showcase will be on Monday Oct 17th from 9:13-9:25pm. More information available at the Arts Northwest website.
Videos of On Ensemble performing:
Gamelgong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF5R2U47gOQ
Turns: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlAsqTM-IjE
Yamasong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGMfP81c_UA
After Rain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiqBIuM-1DI
Video of Educational Programs for the Sun Valley Center for the Arts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey1n__n6L3U
Video of Educational Outreach programs in Los Angeles area:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xekmfn_on-ensemble-educational-programs-pr_creation
Hello taiko friends! Our next slant-drum event has been set! Join me to prepare for it!
I’m arranging a battle at JCI Gardens (Gardena) on March 11 at approximately 1pm. It will be similar in form to what we did at Taiko Conference but with “Singles” and “Doubles” categories. The event will be outside and will precede an On Ensemble / shamisen concert Hiro and I are producing. I imagine we’ll get together in pairs and small groups between now and then to practice and I’ll assign battle partners once we get closer. Each player will have about 90 seconds to play.
Let me know if you’re interested (email kris at On Ensemble dot org) and I’ll send available dates for getting together to practice. If you know of others who might be interested, please pass this info along.
Let the slant-nanigans begin!
