I’m writing this quite a while after our recent “Matsurine” performances with Miyake-jima Geino Doshi-kai on June 1 in Minami Ozawa and June 2 in Yokohama. They both went very well and I want to truly thank everyone who came along.

Almost a month has passed since those performances but I can still feel those good vibrations echoing throughout my body. I’m used to back-to-back concerts on our usual tours, but I poured absolutely everything into these two days and I couldn’t move for several days afterwards… haha.

Every single moment of every scene was packed with excitement, but I think the greatest pleasure of this programme was being able to experience how fun it is to play just one taiko drum with simplicity, whether I was out on stage or in the wings.
When we all took turns playing one taiko, it was clear that each person’s sound is different. I’m sure we were able to show even the first-time audience members just how simple yet captivating taiko can feel.

During the programme, there were three pieces that featured one Kodo member and one Doshi-kai member paired up to play together. I got to perform with Hidenori from Doshi-kai.

We didn’t get to rehearse with Doshi-kai until two days before the performances, so we honed the pieces by sending videos back and forth between our groups.

I thought it was going to be difficult to convey the musical phrases as we created the pieces, but they really understood what we said. And I was really happy that I got to feel the trust that Doshi-kai and Kodo has fostered to date.

Through these performances, I became an even bigger fan of Miyake-jima Geino Doshi-kai.

Doshi-kai x Kodo collaborations evolve with every performance.
I’ll keep beating the drum with all my might so I can show more growth next time, too.

Next, we’ll perform together on July 14 at Hakusan International Taiko Extasia 2024! I’m looking forward to it and seeing Doshi-kai again there.

For the second year in a row, Kodo appeared at Narita Taiko Festival in April alongside Miyake-jima Geino Doshi-kai at the Saturday night performance event, Narita-san Night Drum Concert.
Personally speaking, it was my first time back at Narita Taiko Festival since going along to watch it as a high school student.
Blessed with fine weather, this year we were able to give our performance outside in front of the main hall of Narita-san Shinsho-ji Temple.

I didn’t take part in the collaboration at Narita Taiko Festival last year, nor the 2023 Matsurine tour with Miyake-jima Geino Doshikai, so I went in with mixed feelings: worried about getting into the zone they’d created together last year, wondering if I could get in amongst them and run with it. And so excited for what was to come.

But when we got underway, my feelings were blown away by the powerful sound, the incredible people drumming around me, and the audience’s excitement.

I gave myself over to it, drumming with an immense awareness that if I zoned out for even a moment, my presence would disappear amongst all that sound, energy and fervor.
I put everything I had into each and every beat.
It made me really want to see how much I could evolve moving forward when I keep giving it my all like that.

I’m thrilled to shared that Kodo and Miyake-jima Geino Doshi-kai are going to have a concert in my hometown in Kanagawa. It will be on June 2 at Sakae Public Hall in Sakae Ward, Yokohama City.

Last year, I wasn’t a cast member for the Matsurine tour, but Kazuhiro Tsumura from Miyake-jima Geino Doshi-kai heard that I had been taking part in the lunchtime Miyake Taiko practice sessions at Kodo Village. That led to him coaching me one-on-one for Miyake Taiko, and us working on physical maintenance together. He really helped me. Kazuhiro suggested to me that we hold a concert in my hometown, and it’s actually happening!

I have a lot of memories at Sakae Public Hall, from performing there when I was a student with my local taiko group to school choral competitions and other events growing up. I’m really grateful to that place.

I’m really looking forward to returning there to perform with Doshi-kai and my fellow Kodo members, and our sound echoing throughout the hall.

It’s a chance for me to show the place that helped raise me just how much I can put into each beat.
I’m the youngest cast member… I’ll do my best to hold my ground!
I’m really looking forward to welcoming everyone to this performance.

June 2 (Sun), 2024
Kodo × Miyake-jima Geino Doshi-kai Yokohama Performance (Kanagawa Prefecture)

We almost had no 0on (zero on, which literally translates as “zero sound”) releases in 2023, so I’m really glad I got this album out in time. Phew! No sound was not the intention.

“Hamon” is available exclusively on bandcamp to stream and buy.
https://0on-tapes.bandcamp.com/

I hope you enjoy it!

Yuta Sumiyoshi’s 2nd Home-Recorded Solo Album “Hamon”

The sounds of shinobue (transverse bamboo flutes), marimba, and an analog drum machine weave together to create original minimal music from diverse polyrhythms.
Feel-good attack coupled with seemingly endless loops of eclectic beats.
All stitched together by shinobue melodies.
Five tracks. All recorded at home. Digital release only.

“On the ferry heading towards Sado Island, I looked over the side of the boat, down into the water.
The hull created ripples as it cut through the sea.
There I saw regularity and randomness, coexisting within continuity.
Each simple repetition, layering over and over again, producing ripple after ripple.
I felt inspired to try to create a world of sound like that.”

Our short tour with Miyake-jima Geino Doshi-kai is about to begin. We’re heading to Hachinohe, Yokohama, Iruma, and Sakura in Tochigi, so if you’re in the area, please come and see us!

Every time Kodo performs with Doshi-kai, we create new pieces and our collaboration evolves. We would love to share our performance with you.

One of the members of Doshi-kai, Kazuhiro Tsumura, trained at Kodo Apprentice Centre with me. We were in the same cohort. Last spring, we created a piece for the two of us to play on stage.

We’ve been honing it through each performance. When I perform with Kazuhiro, it feels like we are breathing in perfect sync. I realized he is a truly one-of-a-kind friend.

It’s been almost 20 years since we first met. Who’d have thought we’d get to tour together like this with our respective groups?

I never imagined it. We have both gained a lot of experience apart, honing our sound and performing over the years. Bringing that together to create new sound and expression has been really fun.

I hope we can perform at each other’s 60th birthday gigs one day.

Our “Matsurine” performance is about upholding traditions and expressing them with creativity and simplicity. We’re bringing this powerful festival to the theater. Don’t miss it!

Tour Schedule

*All links lead to Japanese pages.
Oct. 27 (Fri), 2023 Kodo Appearance “Matsurine 2023” (Hachinohe, Aomori)

Nov. 1 (Wed), 2023 Kodo Appearance “Matsurine 2023” (Yokohama, Kanagawa)

Nov. 4 (Sat), 2023 Kodo Appearance “Matsurine 2023” (Iruma, Saitama)

Nov. 5 (Sun), 2023 Kodo Appearance “Taiko Festival 2023” (Sakura, Tochigi)

The course content is split into four phases.
In Phase 1, we work on the fundamentals of fuse-uchi (upright taiko playing).
In Phase 2, we apply those techniques to playing o-daiko (the big drum).
As we progress through Phases 3 and 4, we look at stance, using your body, learning to play set phrases, and bringing it all together as you work towards your own ideal form.

When it comes to taiko, there is a broad range of drumming methods and styles, aesthetics, and schools of thought. At Kodo Taiko School, I would like to share with you one of the ways of playing taiko that Kodo has developed over the years. I want to teach you what I know and hope to invigorate you. I’m also looking forward to learning throughout the course as we all talk and discuss taiko playing.
These online courses enable free-flowing communication, which makes them an opportunity for us all to grow and boost our skills together.

We know some people would like to take part, but they can’t because of the noise involved or their internet setup.
There’s no need to hesitate because you don’t have a drum at home, or somewhere to play one online. During the lessons, you can use a mat or cushion instead of a drum. Please feel free to get creative and make it work for you.
If you like, you’re also welcome to video yourself between lessons, playing the tasks I give you on a taiko drum. If you send me your video, I’ll give you some feedback and advice.

Some of my past class participants came to Sado Island this summer for Earth Celebration. We’d only be in touch online before, and I got to meet them in person at long last.
I also got to teach some of them in person, giving them private lessons playing an actual taiko. I was so happy to see the participants coming together at our festival and to see the progress they are making beyond the course.
To take the course, you do need to have some taiko playing experience already. But you don’t need to speak Japanese: We have an English interpreter for all our lessons.
I hope you’ll take this opportunity to join me and taiko players from around the world online to learn together and expand your own circle of taiko friends.
Who’s in?

The next O-daiko Masterclass starts in January 2024. It’s an 8-class course.
On Saturday November 18, we’re going to have Online Information Sessions. We hope to see you there!

Kodo Taiko School | O-daiko Masterclass with Tomohiro Mitome 2024

Kodo One Earth Tour 2025
Photo: Takashi Okamoto

Energetic stage performances where talented individuals shine, glistening sweat, beaming smiles, a few words to address the audience, joy and excitement, and applause. Yes, that must be the appeal of the beloved Kodo ensemble, which has captivated fans all over the world for decades. That is what I have felt watching them perform on their Japan tours in recent years. Their usual productions are, however, completely different from the first performance I collaborated on with them. I composed the eponymous piece for Noism x Kodo “Oni,” the 2020–22 work commissioned by Niigata City Art & Culture Promotion Foundation and directed and choreographed by Jo Kanamori. Kodo’s performances are delightful by nature. And, to tell the truth, ever since the new production they created immediately after “Oni,” I’ve noticed something: a certain freshness and a different kind of depth to their works. I hear it in the details, such as the resonance and ma—the Japanese feeling of space—they create in the music. I wonder if Kodo’s fans can feel that, too.

Noism × Kodo “Oni”(2024)
Photo: Yuichi Kayano

In this essay, I want to talk about two pieces that Kodo will reprise during its 2026 tours. One is Monochrome, which was composed in 1976 by Maki Ishii (1936–2003) and premiered by Kodo’s precursor that same year in Berlin. The other is Oni, which I composed in recent years for the group. I also want to share what I anticipate from Kodo.

Now, fifty years have passed since Kodo’s antecedent group, Sado no Kuni Ondekoza, performed Monochrome for the very first time in 1976. I wonder what kind of significance this composition holds for Kodo today. I think about its composer, Maki Ishii. In the mid-seventies, Japan’s composers were particularly active during a time of economic growth. Ishii traveled back and forth between Germany and Japan and became a key figure in sharing Europe’s popular “avant-garde” with Japan. That being said, Ishii himself was a dynamic, distinctive composer with a style that differed from the so-called Western avant-garde: his style had a certain primal, austere quality, close to that of a natural phenomenon. Played by seven people, Monochrome is an ambitious masterpiece that I can’t help but think is the result of what Ishii felt over fifty years ago when he first met Kodo’s precursor, Ondekoza—all condensed into one piece. Incidentally, there were no other pieces at the time that were composed especially for Ondekoza. It’s no wonder, considering it was a group centered around wadaiko [Japanese drums] that was heading in a new direction, away from simply upholding regional folk performing arts. Back then, generally speaking, people thought of it as a group that ran 20 km a day for physical training and played taiko loudly, hammering out beat after beat.

“Kaguyahime” rehearsal in Iruma, 1983

By contrast, Monochrome starts with sounds that are barely audible: a sole performer playing the beats quickly on a shime-daiko [small roped drum]. The piece progresses with the remaining six performers gradually joining the initial soloist, one by one, all playing the exact same rhythm rapidly in unison, layering the beats upon one another. After the seven performers unite to play in sync, they spend almost 30 seconds gradually increasing the force of each strike, intensifying the beats until they reach fortississimo (fff). I can feel Ishii’s aesthetics and bold attempt here. According to Ishii’s website*, “He devised a completely new way of playing taiko for them and demanded that they practice this new drumming method until it became their flesh and blood. The initial training was rigorous and strict. […] It was much like the practice of a Buddhist truth seeker. The result […] was hard to believe and led to a performance with extraordinary precision and dynamism. […]”

“Oni” rehearsal on Sado Island, 2021

Reading these words, I recalled the creation process of the piece that I composed for Kodo, Oni. Composer Maki Ishii required Kodo to carry out special training, and some 45 years later, when it came time to play my piece, the Kodo performers invented their own etude for the composition, which they practiced before every rehearsal. When I asked them their reason for doing that, the leader for the premiere performance calmly replied, “It’s our first time playing a piece like this. So it’s to heighten our concentration right before we play the first beat.” I was deeply impressed. One of the most distinct characteristics of my music is the sense of a sign that something is coming—an omen. So it is important that you decisively control the energy within your body until right before you make a sound. It was our first collaboration, and Kodo had already grasped the characteristics of the music I compose with sincerity, sensitivity, and intuition. Incidentally, before I composed Oni, I visited Kodo Village on Sado Island. When I heard Kodo perform in close proximity, I sensed they were a group with great potential—but that they might only be using around 20% of their potential. Also, the director and choreographer Jo Kanamori said, “I want to hear something different from anything I’ve heard Kodo play before.” From the mid-nineties onwards, whenever I want to attempt something new, I think the first thing that needs to happen is for the music medium (the performers themselves) to change internally. Otherwise, it tends to become a superficially interesting sound and display of skill, which doesn’t convey actual newness to the audience. That’s how I have composed pieces to date. So with Oni, I wanted to create the kind of music that would change Kodo on the inside. Several months after completing the piece, they delivered a performance that far exceeded my expectations, and Oni left my hands and became part of Kodo, internalized and played in their own way. That’s how it felt. Such a joyous occurrence seldom happens in the life of a composer.

“Dyu-Ha” rehearsal in Cologne, 1981
Photo: Kazuaki Tomida

And just like that, I’m drawing to the end of this essay. In 1981, Maki Ishii gifted one of his works, Dyu-Ha, to Kodo to celebrate the founding of the group. On his website, there is a section about the piece, which says:

“Dyu-Ha means to enter new territory, and in gagaku [Japanese court music], it denotes a kind of transition format [used to change the melody]. […] To celebrate the newly formed Kodo, and entreat them to take flight, I designed a piece that would usher them into a new world of taiko, something different from what I had written to date—Monochrome and Mono-Prism.”

Monochrome
Photo: Takashi Okamoto

On that day when I witnessed the etude for Oni that Kodo created, I sensed that Ishii’s hopes had been handed down to the Kodo of today. Their performance skills are highly refined, to the degree that they could probably memorize and play a percussion piece composed by Iannis Xenakis, for instance. However, I personally don’t want to create music that showcases dazzling performance technique. I would like to try to create music that takes Kodo’s musical physicality to more profound levels. Generations of composers have been spurred on by their encounters with wonderful performers who are their contemporaries. These encounters motivate them to create high-quality music. Nowadays, we have entered the age of AI, and music has changed remarkably. Even so, people can still do things AI cannot. Performers can tune in to the subtle movements and changes within themselves and listen to themselves and others as they perform. When performers do that and play music with their body and soul, they create resonant sound that AI cannot imitate. So my wish is this: to create music that sounds fresh and new even 100 years from now. I anticipate that Kodo will continue to delve deeper and break new ground.

November 16, 2025
Tokyo, Japan

*Translator’s Note: This essay was written in Japanese with quotes from the Japanese pages of Maki Ishii’s website. These quotes do not appear on the website’s English pages.

“Kodo One Earth Tour 2026: LUMINANCE” Europe Tour

When I started planning this course, we decided I should create an O-daiko piece that everyone can play together. So I’ve been working on that since last year. As I travel the world, I’ve been thinking about the imagery for this piece. I wanted it to be something people who gather from a range of different places could all have in mind as they play, and something that was fun to play together.

I love the sea. When I’m on Sado Island, I’m always looking at the sea.

And when the towns I visit on my travels have a beach or river, that makes me so happy. I feel really good when I think about how the sea and rivers here and there and Sado Island are all connected. When we send the O-daiko to Europe for our tours (I’m in Europe now), we use sea freight. The ship sails across different oceans to foreign lands, far, far away from Sado Island, and I get to play that taiko. It makes me think that the world feels connected by the power of water. When I was reflecting on that, I thought I’d like to try turning water journeys into sound.

Another theme of this upcoming course is the body, which is made up of a lot of water, too.

Water ties people to nature and land.

During this course, the participants will tune into the unique characteristics of their body and channel the sound of a drop of water from somewhere in the world that flows into a river and takes its own journey out into a vast ocean. I’m already excited just thinking about the sound that awaits us based on that idea.

My composition notebook. I add drawings as I explore the imagery.

I’d like to chat with the participants and find a title for this piece together.

I’m creating phrases for the ensemble, and we’ll add a solo part for each person, and tune in to each story as we go.

I warmly welcome participants from far and wide to gather around the 0-daiko with me for some quality time, tuning into our bodies and the sound of taiko together.

Working on the composition at a theater in Europe. I play the phrases over and over, refining my body’s movements and the sound.

Body Mechanics for O-daiko Expression with Kenta Nakagome
Course Dates: Apr. –June 2024
Application Period: Feb. 1 (Thu)–Mar. 31 (Sun), 2024

Body Mechanics for O-daiko Expression with Kenta Nakagome

I want them to paint vivid images, and I want them to resonate with the audience’s hearts.

When I direct, my goal is the same.

When I was offered the opportunity to direct a new Kodo production, I set out on a quest to find what it was that I wanted to portray.

I asked myself: What do I want the audience to feel?

As I dove deeper, the same question popped up over and over again.

“Why do we, Kodo, play taiko?”

It’s easy to say that playing taiko is a calling.

But why do I, or my colleagues, play taiko as a member of Kodo? I think that’s a completely different question.

Ever since the world came to a standstill in the Spring of 2020, there have been countless times where I’ve felt like we are incredibly powerless in the face of adversity.

I’ve questioned how much we are living up to the “One Earth” mantra, without taking strong stands and courses of action on various issues around the globe.

I’ve been reminded time and time again how incredibly fortunate we are to be able to play taiko for a living, and that we shouldn’t take anything for granted.

Over these past three years, I have been asking myself the same question: “What are we doing?”

It was during this time of self-loathing and trepidation that I had the opportunity to perform in front of Ukrainian war refugees in Estonia.

This turned out to be one the most memorable moments of my career; all I wished for in that moment was to give these people hope, to offer them a moment of peace.

It was a state of pure emotion and altruism; something I didn’t know I was capable of.

It’s hard to put in words, but it was at that moment I felt I wanted to create something that was truly altruistic in nature.

Something that can inspire people, something that can have a positive effect on the world.

Whether or not I’ll be able to achieve this is a question for another time. For now, I am extremely grateful I’ve been given the chance to try.

This is my calling.

Ryotaro Leo Ikenaga

Photo: Takashi Okamoto
Art Director: Hiroomi Hattori (COM Works)

Director

Ryotaro Leo Ikenaga

Cast*

Kenta Nakagome, Shogo Komatsuzaki, Yuta Sumiyoshi, Koki Miura, Mizuki Yoneyama, Masayasu Maeda, Seita Saegusa, Yuki Hirata, Kei Sadanari, Moe Niiyama, et al.
*Subject to change without notice.

Kodo Performance in Asakusa 2023 “Calling”

• June 22 (Thu)—June 25 (Sun), 2023 Asakusa Public Hall, Taito Ward, Tokyo

Kodo used to introduce the instructors who teach at Kodo Apprentice Centre in our Japanese newsletter and on our website, but we haven’t done so for the past few years. 

Our apprentices undertake their apprenticeship with their sights set on the Kodo stage. Naturally, they study taiko, but they also learn a wide range of regional performing arts and instruments other than taiko. That’s one of the great things about Kodo Apprentice Centre.

Today, I would like to introduce Mr. Kazuhito Nomura, the leader of Minakuchi Sosha, a Minakuchi-bayashi group. Minakuchi-bayashi is a traditional performing art upheld in Shiga Prefecture.

Kazuhito Nomura, Leader, Minakuchi-bayashi Minakuchi Sosha
Kodo Apprentice Centre instructor since 2015.
Kazuhito Nomura hails from Minakuchi in Koka City, Shiga Prefecture. He’s a Minakuchi local, born and bred. He loves Minakuchi-bayashi! The Nomura family have been living in Minakuchi for around 300 years. Koka City is famous for Koka Ninja. Minakuchi has prospered since medieval times as the center of Koka. The biggest festival in the Koka region is Minakuchi Hikiyama Matsuri, which has been held for 300 years. This festival has been designated as one of Shiga Prefecture’s intangible folk culture assets. During the festival, floats (hikiyama) are pulled around the town, and Minakuchi-bayashi is the musical accompaniment that is performed inside the floats.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading Mr. Nomura’s story and his introduction to Minakuchi-bayashi in his own words below.

“Minakuchi-bayashi has been around for some 300 years and I have loved it since I was a young child. My father and the men his age and his father’s age used to learn from the elders in the other float towns, and these Minakuchi-bayashi enthusiasts ended up creating Minakuchi-bayashi Minakuchi Sosha. They are crazy about o-hayashi (festival musical accompaniments).
Minakuchi-bayashi, even though it was created three centuries ago, has good musical sensibilities and it’s a famous o-hayashi nationwide. For that reason, there are versions of Minakuchi-bayashi all over Japan and around the world that have deviated from the original Minakuchi-bayashi, and they have been arranged considerably. We want to do something about the erroneous versions of Minakuchi-bayashi out there, so that drives our activities.
We are striving to correctly hand down this tradition to people in Minakuchi and correctly disseminate it to people outside of Minakuchi. These two pillars are at the heart of our activities.”

My serendipitous first encounter with Kodo.

In 2011, Minakuchi Matsuri (Minakuchi Festival) was canceled out of consideration for the areas damaged by the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. In 2012, it was my town Tenjin-machi’s turn to parade its float. But the float whose turn it was the year before didn’t get to do the usual dedication, so they took their turn in 2012 and my town’s turn was delayed until 2013.

It just so happened that Eri Uchida (a Kodo member at that time) had taken some time off in 2013 around Minakuchi Matsuri, which is held on April 20. She had gone back to her family home in Aichi Prefecture and called an acquaintance, saying “I’m going to Minakuchi Matsuri tomorrow, do you want to go with me?” and they came to our festival. The person she called happened to be an acquaintance of mine, too. They came all the way to Minakuchi to observe the festival and to meet me. And Eri was introduced to me, and that’s how our exchange began. If these coincidences hadn’t overlapped, I don’t think I would have crossed paths with Kodo.

The following year, in 2014, I went to Sado Island for the first time and I led Minakuchi-bayashi practice sessions at Kodo Village and Kodo Apprentice Centre. Since then, every year I have had the honor of visiting Kodo Apprentice Centre as an instructor.
Thanks to that first encounter. I also got to perform Minakuchi-bayashi at Earth Celebration with members of Kodo.

Mr. Nomura teaching at Kodo Apprentice Centre. The blackboard has rhythms on it, written as kuchi-shoga (verbal notation).

Minakuchi-bayashi performance at Earth Celebration 2016

Kuchi-shoga (verbal notation) is important for Minakuchi-bayashi.

When I teach, I use the oral traditional way that has been upheld in my hometown, Minakuchi, for 300 years.
It’s the method that Japanese people honed by using it to pass down traditional arts, long before Western music reached Japan. So I think that when I teach and share this art, the most important thing for me to do as a teacher is to use this method.

I’ve heard from researchers that amongst the various o-hayashi (festival accompaniments) nationwide that are still upheld today, Minakuchi-bayashi is very rare because it has complete kuchi-shoga (verbal notation, used to speak the rhythms) for all the instruments used to play it.
Minakuchi-bayashi is played using four instruments: o-daiko (big drum), ko-daiko (small drum, a.k.a. shime-daiko), surigane (metal percussion instrument, a.k.a. atarigane), and shinobue (bamboo flute). All of these instruments have kuchi-shoga for the entire melody line of Minakuchi-bayashi. That means that you can perform Minakuchi-bayashi just by speaking the rhythms.
I am convinced that the most important part of passing down Minakuchi-bayashi is kuchi-shoga, and playing each instrument with the exact same sounds as the kuchi-shoga is the long-cherished desire of this tradition.

For that reason, most of my instruction focuses on kuchi-shoga from start to finish: first learning the kuchi-shoga that have been passed down orally in Minakuchi for three centuries, then playing the sounds on each instrument exactly like the kuchi-shoga.
Upon that foundation, I teach how each of the sounds played on each instrument should sound, how they are related, and how they all fit together.
I strive to help people understand the blueprint of this 300-year-old o-hayashi (festival accompaniment music) and that an o-hayashi is a living thing.

Practice scenes at Kodo Apprentice Centre (Mr. Nomura and family with members of Kodo)

I want the apprentices to experience a range of Japanese music culture firsthand.

Most Kodo apprentices don’t know Minakuchi-bayashi before they enter Kodo Apprentice Centre, so they learn it here for the first time. I think a lot of the apprentices try to play it by converting it into the Western music scale in their heads, thinking of each note as one simple sound.

Japanese music, in particular o-hayashi (accompaniment music), has a lot of rather ambiguous parts, but there are also parts that you have to play in sync with one another, so you really have to concentrate a lot on those key points.

For example, with Minakuchi-bayashi, the taiko and the surigane (metal percussion) both play two parts: they play the ji-uchi (base) rhythm part and a part called tama-uchi that adds ma (space, or pauses). The ji-uchi part is difficult to capture using Western notation—you can’t split it into notes. So the tama-uchi that is designed to go with that complex ji-uchi is also hard to capture.

I think this shows the great musical sensibilities of Japanese people from way back.

I want the apprentices to ditch the fixed notion that all music can be written with the Western staff system, and for them to experience a broad range of Japanese music culture firsthand.
The apprentices will go on to be future Kodo members who will give performances all over Japan and around the world. I want them to share Minakuchi-bayashi, and traditional Japanese culture that is difficult to explain, with people all over the world.  

Mr. Nomura and family with Kodo apprentices, members, and staff at Kodo Apprentice Centre after the latest Minakuchi-bayashi practice sessions in March 2022.　　　　

Next time, I will introduce Ms. Yumi Nogami, the voice trainer who teaches at Kodo Apprentice Centre.

Kodo now has a decade’s worth of experiences at this place, and I feel so happy that we’re back here again this year.

There is so much going on right now all over the world, and here in Japan. It feels like we’re living our usual daily lives with chaos either close by, or all around us.

It makes me think…what can we do as taiko players?
What should artists share in times like these?

Tomorrow is uncertain, but I’ve made it to tomorrow each day thus far. So I want to keep creating and expressing myself as an artist, giving my all each day.

I want to express what it means to be born in this era, and what I’m doing with Kodo now.

I want to turn that into power that helps get us all through to “tomorrow” again.

I want to take all the moments when I laugh and feel excited and deeply moved, and pack them all into this performance with along with my gratitude.

I sincerely hope that our performances bring the joy of spring and the sounds of Shukunegi to many people.

Kodo Sado Island Performances in Shukunegi (2022)

Apr 29 (Fri)–May 7 (Sat), 2022 Shukunegi Community Hall, Ogi Peninsula, Sado Island, Niigata

Dates & Times

• Apr 29 (Fri) 14:30　[O-daiko: Yoshikazu Fujimoto]
• Apr 30 (Sat) 11:00　[O-daiko: Tomohiro Mitome]
• Apr 30 (Sat) 14:30　[O-daiko: Yoshikazu Fujimoto]
• May 1 (Sun) 11:00　[O-daiko: Tomohiro Mitome]
• May 2 (Mon) DARK
• May 3 (Tue) 14:30　[O-daiko: Yoshikazu Fujimoto]
• May 4 (Wed) 11:00　[O-daiko: Tomohiro Mitome]
• May 4 (Wed) 14:30　[O-daiko: Yoshikazu Fujimoto]
• May 5 (Thu) 11:00　[O-daiko: Tomohiro Mitome]
• May 6 (Fri) DARK
• May 7 (Sat) 11:00　[O-daiko: Yoshikazu Fujimoto]
• May 7 (Sat) 14:30　[O-daiko: Tomohiro Mitome]

Kodo Sado Island Performances in Shukunegi (2022)