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''Kinnara Taiko'' is a Japanese American drumming ensemble (playing taiko) based out of Senshin Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles, USA. They began playing taiko in 1969 when a few third-generation Japanese Americans gathered after an Obon festival and had an impromptu experimental session on an odaiko drum. Naming themselves after the celestial musicians of Buddhist mythology, the Kinnara, Kinnara Taiko became the first Japanese American Buddhist taiko group. As a Buddhist group, Kinnara places more emphasis on participation, self-awareness and discovering the joy in “just playing” taiko rather than stressing perfection and professionalism as other performance-focused taiko groups do. They contributed largely to the development of kumi-daiko in North America with their innovation of wine barrel drums and their extensive outreach to other Japanese American Buddhist communities in helping start other temple-based taiko groups. ==History== Kinnara Taiko officially began in 1969 at the Jodo Shinshu Senshin Buddhist Temple (a member of the Buddhist Churches of America) in Los Angeles. After playing on a drum for hours the night of an Obon festival when Rev. Masao “Mas” Kodani, who had been recently schooled in Japan, brought up the drum’s use in Japan, he and six other temple members decided to start a formal group based loosely on the pictures and recordings they had seen and heard of Japanese taiko players. Having only a single taiko drum and not enough money to purchase new authentic drums for the other players, the members of Kinnara began experimenting with inexpensive versions for their own drums. At first they used nail keg wooden barrels and tried to stretch leather over them for the drumheads, but soon upgraded to oak wine barrels and rawhide with much more success. They practiced in Senshin Temple and performed at both temple functions and public events, where they drew considerable crowds due to their uniqueness as one of the first taiko groups in the country. Throughout the 1970s Kinnara performed at various Buddhist temples across the United States and helped start taiko groups at many of them to help attract younger generations to become involved in temple life. These included performances in Palo Alto, California, at the Ginza Festival in Chicago, and many other places. The group has performed widely in the United States at schools and universities, multi-cultural folk festivals, Buddhist Temples and for Japanese American and Asian Pacific American organizations. Performances in the past have included The Olympic Arts Festival, Los Angeles; Memphis in May, Memphis, Tennessee; an Obon Festival in Charlotte, North Carolina; a Japanese Festival Celebration at the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach, Florida; and for Delta Air Lines in Atlanta, Georgia. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kinnara Taiko」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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