Khoomei Taiko Ensemble wrap-up
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
I just finished up the last leg of the Khoomei Taiko Ensemble tour. These two great photos of our last concert were taken by Daniel Sheehan a Seattle based photography who specializes in Jazz photography. He posts photos from every performance at the Earshot Jazz Festival so check out his website for more full size photos of the Khoomei Taiko Ensemble performance and other Earshot Jazz Festival performances.
After New York we flew to Seattle for two concerts and a workshop. The Seattle Taiko community took great care of us and I’d like to give a shout out to Stan, Linda, Masae and Eric for all of their help! (more…)
What a great couple of days filled with new experiences. From New York I boarded a plane with Kaoru and Teddy to Seoul where we met up with our Japanese musicians Miki Maruta and Tetsuro Naito then the five of us flew into Ulaanbaatar that night. My first day in Mongolia was spent in a daze induced by the 10607 mile trip and the lack of espresso. After months of skype sessions and emails it was great to finally meet our Mongolian hosts and musicians. Teserendorj, Shinetsog and Khongorzul are all amazing musicians. It’s one thing to hear them over a sporatic internet connection but to actually be in the same room and to hear their powerful voices has been amazing. We’ve also been extremely well taken care of, our Mongolian hosts have gone out of their way to arrange transportation, translate and feed us. Tonight we were treated to dinner at a fantastic vegetarian restaurant courtesy of one of our translators Nominjin, who is an great singer in her own right.
This month Shoji will be traveling to Mongolia as part of the Khoomei-Taiko Ensemble, a collaboration featuring khoomei (throat singing), taiko, Japanese flutes, morin khuur (horsehead fiddle), Mongolian jaw harp, long song and matgaal (praise) songs. The idea of a larger collaboration that would explore the cultural connections between Japan, Mongolia and the United States was born out of a 2007 collaborative performance between Kaoru (fue, noh kan), Shoji (throat singing, taiko) and Zulsar (throat singing, morin khuur) held at the American Museum of Natural History.