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Educational outreach is an important part of On Ensemble’s musical mission. Many of our audiences are seeing these instruments for the first time, and the cultural background for On Ensemble’s music is somewhat complicated. There are obvious Japanese inspirations, but there is also turntable scratching and Tuvan-esque overtone singing. The music isn’t entirely new, or entirely traditional. It takes some explaining.

So in addition to our concert performances, we jump at opportunities to talk about where we’re coming from and give others a chance to drum. Last year I taught a week-long session at Pilgrim School and On Ensemble did nine workshops with third graders at Glassell Park Elementary. Brent Pantell compiled footage from these encounters into a video about On Ensemble’s educational outreach and it turned out really well! See the video below and read more in the Educational Outreach section of our About page. Thank you, Brent!

On Ensemble educational programs promo video

About three months ago, Nicki and Dan (my sister and her husband) had their second baby girl, Hazel. I spent last week visiting the gang and playing with my 2.5-year-old niece, Cordelia.

Thank you for all the fun!

We’ve just got news that Yamasong will be shown at the upcoming Dragon*Con Film Festival!  With an attendence of over 30,000 Dragon*Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!  Maybe On Ensemble should write some songs in Quenya and try to perform at Dragon*Con.  Or better yet Klingon…  I bet Klingons play taiko.

Hiro and I just enjoyed watching a fun movie, The Yes Men Fix the World. You can download it for free here!

Kris and Maz will be heading up to Mt. Shasta for the 6th Annual Shastayama festival this weekend! For those of you that don’t know yet Shastayama is one of the coolest taiko festivals ever. Of course I’m a little biased because Maz’s parents and my first taiko teachers Russel Baba and Jeanne Mercer organize the festival so don’t take my word for it go check it out for yourself! This year’s specials guest include: Taikoproject, Somei Yoshino Taiko Ensemble, Michelle Fujii and Toru Watanabe.

Come see Kris and Maz perform this weekend as part of TAIKOPROJECT in Rhythmic Relations 2010! The concert will be on July 10th and 11th at the Ford Amphitheater in North Hollywood.

Click here for information and tickets.

We will be debuting SIX new songs! I am also proud to announce that we will be releasing the new album at the concert which I produced called “Surrounding Suns”. I’m so excited for this moment!

On Monday I took a trip to the fabulous Bicycle Kitchen for a 12-speed tune-up. The Bicycle Kitchen is a not-for-profit organization that hosts a public bike shop and arranges volunteers to help bike lovers repair their own bikes. You make an appointment, show up with your ride, and the Bicycle Kitchen has helping hands, tools, and spare parts to get you set up. Ken helped me adjust my rear derailleur which has been giving me issues. Thank you Bicycle Kitchen!

Stanford Taiko member Brady Fukumoto joined me for three days of practice and experimentation and we had a great time! We worked on betta and slant form, discussed taiko philosophy, and explored a new composition. Brady is a great oboe player and I’m hoping we can put together a new piece for On Ensemble’s next Works in Progress concert. Thanks, Brady!

You can tell from the t-shirts that we're a good pair