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Shoji gave a great workshop on Omiyage to members of Fushicho Daiko in Phoenix. They did a fantastic job learning the core of the piece, with its complicated rhythms and movements. Emma even made vegan chocolate cake so we all had a treat after the workout. Thank you Fushicho!

The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) was a wonderful treat! We got to see the drums that MIM commissioned from drum-maker and On-Ensemble-friend, Mark Miyoshi. In the image below, Maz is talking with him on the phone.

Mark’s drums are located in the “North America” section of the museum. As I was walking around the museum a staff member approached, recognizing me from that morning’s performance. He said, “Can I ask you a question?.. Sometimes people come up to me and complain that these taiko drums are in the North America section, versus Asia. What do you think of our decision to put them here?” I told him On Ensemble was very pleasantly surprised that the Museum had taken the more honest and complicated approach of representing Mark’s instruments as American. I explained how his finger-jointed-stave construction technique is uniquely his own, and how it was a reaction to the challenges of building taiko with the woods available in the US. The staff member said, “I’m so pleased to know how to explain it now… teaching moments!” Go MIM!!!

We had a great performance at the Musical Instrument Museum tonight! We’ll be doing some more post performance posts but I just wanted to do a quick one to say thank you to the great staff at MIM! The food was great the museum was amazing and the theater was beautiful. We felt very well taken care of! I also wanted to give a shout out to the Fushicho Daiko and Odaiko Sonora members who helped us load out and took us out to post performance drinks! Taiko people rock!

Wow now I can say I performed at Carnegie Hall and I wouldn’t even be lying.  The concert version of Eric Whitacre’s Paradise Lost : Shadows and Wings was quite an event.  The choir was massive, the beats were massive, the soloist were amazing and much fun was had.

Yesterday I taught a workshop to Kaoru’s taiko center and we rehearsed for our upcoming gig at DROM.  I’m planning on spending the next couple of days seeing as much music and eating as much good food as I can.  Kaoru and his wife Mari have also got me hooked on Lost.  Though they are at the end of season 5  and I can’t really imagine anything being more confusing than starting to watch this show from this point.  I spend every episode confused beyond imagination but find the whole experience oddly compelling.

Holy moly!  Shoji and I got into New York Saturday night and it’s been a bit of a whirlwind since.  The night we got in, we had and awesome dinner at Chevella’s with our awesome hosts and good friends, Kaoru and Mari.

The next day, we sat down and wrote out our scores for Paradise Lost.  I taught an Omiyage workshop at Kaoru’s school, the Kaoru Watanabe Taiko Center.  Shoji will be back at the school on Wednesday to fine tune the song.

Today, we had a rehearsal for Eric Whitacre’s Paradise Lost in which we perform in tomorrow at Carnegie Hall!  We didn’t really know what to expect, but today’s rehearsal was amazing.  There are over 400 singers in the choir, seven lead singers, Eric (the creator and conductor), Greg (musical director and DJ), Fang Fang (cello virtuoso), the narrator, and us.  I was overwhelmed by the power of 400 singers.  It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard.  Amazing…

Video doesn’t really do it justice, but here is a clip:  PLChoir

The musicians, Greg, Eric, the narrator, and the leads!  Come check out the concert tomorrow if you’re in NYC!

While Kelvin is busy with Ruined, On continues to tour to the Rialto Theater in Tacoma.  That’s what we like about On Ensemble.  While we love On, we support each other and are encouraged to branch out and do our own things.  That being said, we picked up Chris Hartz on drum set, and Kaoru Watanabe to play with us for this tour.

After a two day drive where we have been leaking transmission fluid from the van (which is scary because it takes a while for the clutch to engage into gear) and lost our cover to our catalytic converter, we made it safely to Tacoma.  We of course got to stop in and visit our parents for a short night and we visited our old On Ensemble buddy, Michelle Fujii, now artistic director of Portland Taiko, for lunch in Portland.  Nice to know people on the road!

Today we had a lecture/demonstration and then a workshop for elementary kids.  Here’s Kris teaching them oroshi and renshu taiko.

There are still tickets left for our concert tomorrow at 7:30pm!  Come check it out!  It’s always fun to play with Kaoru and Chris adds another tasty flavor to our mix.

We had a great time performing at Kenny Endo’s 35th Anniversary concert this past Saturday.  Kenny has been a great teacher and mentor to us over the years and it was an honor to share the stage with him and the amazing artists he brought together to celebrate his 35 years in the artform. On Sunday Kaoru, Kenny and myself had another short performance at Senshin Buddhist temple for Hanamatsuri which was also a lot of fun.  All in all it was a great weekend of music.  Congratulations again Kenny!

We just returned from a quick trip up to Bellingham, WA for a couple of educational performances for 2,000 k-6th graders at Western Washington University.  It was a long long drive from Los Angeles but it was a great program and a huge thank you goes out to Courtney for bringing us back to WWU.

It pretty much rained all through Oregon and Washington but luckily we avoided any snow.  Usually when we get up to the Pacific Northwest it’s during the late spring or summer and it’s so beautiful we all end up wondering why we live in the sprawling urban wasteland known as Los Angeles.  Four days of driving through constant rain only to return to 80 degree sunshine makes Los Angeles feel like paradise!  I celebrated by making homemade lemon rosemary sorbet from lemons and rosemary harvested from the yard.  Tomorrow I plan on enjoying the sorbet on the porch in shorts and I will try to remember not to complain about Los Angeles anymore!

When you live in Los Angeles it’s very easy to forget how foul weather can be just a few short hours away. On our way to Reno we ran into a blizzard through the Sierras. Luckily the thoughtful staff at UNR called to warn us about the storm. Still it was hard for me to conceptualize putting chains on our van while reading that email in shorts and 80 degree weather that morning. Thank goodness Maz actually took the warning to heart and packed a proper snow jacket and gloves. We had a horrible time with putting chains on our van and once we got them on they broke! Kris then channeled his inner Macgyver and repaired the show chains by linking the disconnected sections with a key chain ring. All was saved!

It’s a good thing we made it because the performance was fantastic!  The audience was very enthusiastic and the staff and sound engineers at the hall were all top notch.  A big thank you goes out to CJ for bringing us out to Reno and to Chris, Rich, Bob, Scott and the rest of the staff for all of their work.  We worked two new pieces into the concert and reworked another piece dramatically.  I was very pleased with the flow of the second half with the new pieces and feel like our program keeps getting better and better.  We have some recordings that I’ll post in the next couple of days.  Then to top it all off after the concert a woman came up to us and gave us a koto! Thank you Akiko-san for the wonderful gift and we’ll put it to good use!