Ethnomusicology Visiting Artist Shoji Kameda leads a performance of traditional and modern taiko music. The concert features his UW students, members of UW Taiko Kai, and special guests from the Seattle Taiko Community.
Program Notes
As a UW Community Artist in Residence during Winter quarter 2024, Shoji Kameda has brought together UW students with members of the Seattle area taiko community to create a dynamic learning experience. In addition to teaching a class in the UW School of Music, Kameda offered weekend workshops for community members at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Washington Taiko Dojo, Two Cranes Aikido, Cornish College and Seattle University. His residency was funded in part by a UW Jones Grant for Research Excellence in the Arts and was organized in collaboration with UW Taiko Kai and members of the Seattle area taiko community.
Tonight’s program features a variety of music for the modern taiko ensemble. With roots in Japan, taiko has taken on new forms and meanings over the last 80s years in a context of Japanese American cultural activism and participation by people from diverse communities.
PROGRAM
Students of Musap 389/589
Renshu Taiko, c. Seiichi Tanaka
Hiryu Sandan Gaeshi, c. Daihachi Oguchi
Narushima, c. Katsuji Kondo
UW Taiko Kai
Ready Set kaDON, c. Shoji Kameda (featuring guest performers from the Seattle Area Taiko Community)
Summer Song, c. Eri Uchida and Shoji Kameda
Omiyage, c. Shoji Kameda
Shoji Kameda with Inochi Taiko
Improvisation
Lion Chant, c. Shoji Kameda
PERFORMERS
Shoji Kameda is a fourth-generation Japanese American musician and composer who began playing taiko at the age of eight. He is a founder and member of On Ensemble, a contemporary taiko quartet, and a former member of the jazz fusion group Hiroshima, with whom he earned a Grammy nomination for the 2009 album, Legacy. Kameda has also composed for film, including an original score for the 2006 documentary, Abduction: The Megumi Yokota Story, which won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Slamdance Film Festival. He is one of the founders and directors of KaDON, an online platform dedicated to empowering the worldwide taiko community since 2014.
Students in Musap 389/589
Aluat Atem
Marvin Chapman
Haley Chavez
Ashley Cook
Nick Fowler
Leo Freedman
Galin Hebert
Riko Kishitani
Minghao Li
Jonathan Lopez
Chairnet Muche
Nate Paris
Juan Posada
Tess Roberts
Sean Sasaki
Foad Shariat
Carston Swisstack
Alexis Taniguchi
Wenwen Wei
Taiko Kai is a UW student group founded in 2013 by the Matsudaira sisters, former students of Seattle taiko activist Stan Shikuma. They will be joined on one of tonight’s pieces by guests from Seattle Area Taiko Community.
Inochi Taiko is a Seattle-based taiko drumming ensemble founded in 2003.