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We had a great performance at the Green Show today! Thanks to Claudia, Jess and all the Green Show volunteers.  It was great being back in Ashland and it’s starting to feel like a second home now that Kelvin is living there and we find ourselves performing there for the second time in two months.  We even made the Green Show poster complete with a nice shot of the LA skyline.

We’ll be spending the next couple of days in Mt. Shasta getting some creative rehearsal time in with Kelvin before we head back down to Los Angeles.  More later!

We had a great sold-out performance tonight at the Oregon Bach Festival.  Our stay in Eugene has been fantastic and we’d like to thank John Evans, Michael Anderson and the OBF staff for bringing us to their amazing festival.  We’d also like to thank the great theater and sound crew at the Hult Center for making our concert go so smoothly.  Also a huge thank you goes our to our lighting designer Eileen Cooley for all of her artistry and work.  And last but definitely not least thank you to the members of Portland Taiko who helped us pack up and load out!

Tomorrow we head down to Ashland for a performance at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Green Show.  More later!

We are currently in the beautiful city of Eugene OR for the Oregon Bach Festival.  Yesterday we performed at the opening of On the Road: Two Visions of the Tokaido at the University of Oregon’s Jordon Schnitzer Museum.  We spent today in the theater preparing for tomorrow’s concert and got a nice write up in the Eugene Register-Guard.

Tonight we’re going to watch Helmuth Rilling conduct a performance of Joseph Haydn’s The Creation at the Oregon Bach Festival.  Should be great concert!

Bryan from TAIKOPROJECT has been obsessed with finding a warehouse for TAIKOPROJECT’s new home.  We’re close.  This might be it!

It’s a great space.  It will take a bit of work to fix the place up to our satisfaction, but once it’s finished, this will be a great space to be in.  Practices, rehearsals, small concerts, recordings, retreats… this will be a great resource!  And hopefully On can help pitch in to use it too…  =)

A taiko group always dreams of having a nice, big, open space.  I hope this works out.

(click images for larger ver)

We’ve made progress on the mobile home design.  Take a look and help us find a name for the home!

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Last weekend Bryan from TAIKOPROJECT and I went to Japan to celebrate Asano’s 400th Year Anniversary.  I can’t believe there has been a company (let alone a taiko company) that has survived for 400 years.  Can you believe that?

The weekend was filled with performances, drum sales, merchandise sales, meeting many taiko people, and a reception.  Congratulations Julia Asano!

Here’s Bryan in front of a huge odaiko.  At the end of the weekend, there was a fun odaiko jam where we got to play this odaiko.  It was probably the biggest taiko I’ve ever hit in my life and in the process, Yoshikazu Fujimoto, lead odaiko player from Kodo, lent me his odaiko bachi and I totally broke one!  I’ve never done that before.  Maybe I should take lessons from him…

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Hiro and I played a game today during a walk (”sampo” in Japanese) around our neighborhood.

Can you guess the game?

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My old koto slip cover was so old and worn, the fabric would rip with the slightest tug.  So Hiroka and I sewed a new one with material we had around the house and it turned out surprisingly well.

Old cover (click for larger ver)

New cover (click for larger ver)

With the hopes that it will be helpful to someone else, here is a quick howto for sewing a custom soft cover for a Japanese 13-string koto.

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