LATI, WTG, On Ensemble & Los Angeles

Photo by Gene Sugano
Photo by Gene Sugano

I had a wonderful time this past week in Los Angeles. I spent some quality time with Kris Bergstrom of On Ensemble and the recently established Los Angeles Taiko Institute working on a new taiko-oriented arrangement of my composition ‘King Worm’. Kris is going to be using the piece as teaching (and potentially also performance) material for the students at the Institute. I’m looking forward to hearing the final results of our work in the near future…

The weekend of July 18-20 was spent in Little Tokyo at the first World Taiko Gathering. The event was a smash success and superbly organized by Taiko Project. I was happy to meet new and old friends at the gathering, teach two workshops, and perform a short chappa solo at one of the evening concerts. My sincere thanks to the organizing team for all their hard work.

The trip wrapped-up with a wonderful outdoor gig at the lovely Descanso Gardens, near LA. It was such a pleasure to play with On Ensemble and their extended family again, including Eien Hunter-Ishikawa, Lucas Muraguchi, Kaoru Watanabe, Kenny Endo and very special guest dancer, Chieko Kojima. Great evening of great music and dance!