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Fellow taiko player and friend Carrie Carter has been working to start taikoforum.com, intended to bring together taiko players for discussion and sharing. I’m the site’s first guest moderator and am starting off the discussion with questions on basic form. Please help us discover new approaches (and old barriers) to improving basic kata!

TaikoProject’s big concert of the summer is July 10 and 11 at the Ford Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. If you’re in the area and available, come see my Los Angeles-area TaikoProject debut!

A student in Stanford University’s taiko seminar created a wikipedia page about me. Like Shoj said about his page, I feel a little shy about having one, but feel free to edit it to portray me as the doob I really am!

We have just returned from a fantastic trip to Tacoma and UC Davis.

Tacoma’s Broadway Center for the Performing Arts presented On Ensemble at the Rialto Theater. We did a performance for elementary school kids, a hands-on workshop, and an evening performance for the public. This was our first theater performance with Chris Hartz sitting in for Kelvin. The show turned out really well and the audience was very enthusiastic. Thank you, Tacoma!

Maz and I then continued on to UC Davis to teach at the annual Collegiate Taiko Invitational, hosted this year by Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan.  Maz taught a workshop on multi-drum taiko as a representative of TaikoProject and I taught slant drum form and my most recent thoughts on bon festival taiko, representing On Ensemble.  Maz and I then did a joint session on composition.  Thank you to Jackson and all the Invitational coordinators!

Hiro and I attended the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival and had a fantastic time!  We spent a lot of QT with Yuta Kato and his parents.  Mr Kato had just finished some new drums for Stanford Taiko so some of the kids stopped by to see his workshop and hang out.  Yuta, Jimmy Nakagawa (of Somei Yoshino fame), and I taught Japanese music to elementary school kids and had a lot of fun. Thank you to Yuta for taking these photos, and thanks to everyone for a great time!

(Click images for larger versions)

I have just finished a first attempt at an educational guide for teachers and posted it to a new page on our website.

Educational Materials

On Ensemble does a lot of educational outreach and hopefully this guide will help teachers empower students to get the most from On Ensemble’s visit.  Some of the sections of the guide need more flushing out, but hopefully this first draft will get the ball rolling.  My favorite part is the Name That Instrument challenge on pages 10-12.  :)

If you find any typos or have suggestions for future additions, please let me know!

Our friends at Portland Taiko have started accepting applications for their Summer Training program. If you are interested in an intensive summer program then this is for you! The week long program features training in taiko and Japanese folk dance basics and a chance to learn some of Portland Taiko’s repertoire. You can apply online at Portland Taiko’s website.

A year and a half ago I met with Sam Koji Hale a talented puppet maker and visual artist over a bowl of ramen and we talked about doing a short film based on one of the Ume in the Middle tracks. I had seen a table top bunraku production that Sam was involved with and was really taken by the artistry of the performance. When we got together it was clear that creatively we had much in common and that we should try to do something together. Sam then pitched the project to Heather Henson and she agreed to produce a short film through her production company IBEX.

After that it was off to the races. Sam put together a great crew and it was amazing to watch the whole thing come to life from initial character designs and sketches to models to puppets to the shooting and the post production work. At every step of the way my excitement grew as the film came together and now it’s finally finished! Sam is submitting it to film festivals now and we are also producing a DVD of the film with making of features and commentaries.

We’ve also built a website for the film at: OnEnsemble.org/YamasongMovie