Hiroshima's Spirit of the Season Holiday Show!

About two months ago, I got an email from June and Dan Kuramoto of the popular Asian American band, Hiroshima, asking me if I'd be interested in playing an opening koto set for their annual Spirit of the Season Holiday Show. They stumbled across "Seiza" from TAIKOPROJECT's Surrounding Suns CD and fell in love with it. To quote June, she exclaimed, "My heart is exploding!" It's quite an honor to be asked to open for Hiroshima, so I couldn't pass it up!

I had no idea what to perform other than "Seiza". Since I haven't written any songs with just koto, I didn't have much to choose from. While performing with Jodaiko at UC Irvine, I co-wrote a koto/taiko piece entitled "Enkai" with my good friend Michael Gusukuma. Hoping that I still remembered how to play the song, I decided to play "Enkai" as the second number of my set.

I was so excited when Darren, Jen, Maz, Tomomi, and Yuri agreed to accompany me, especially since they are such amazing taiko players that I admire both as musicians and as my friends. They put forth a great deal of effort to learn Enkai and they really transformed the song by adding some TP flair to it!

THE DAY OF THE SHOW:

We arrived at the Japan America Aratani Theater in Little Tokyo, welcomed by the sounds of Hiroshima wrapping up their sound check. At that moment, everything was incredibly nostalgic for me. Every other year when I was young (from about age 4 to age 12) I used to come to the JAT to perform koto concerts with the Koto String Society. At that time, June would perform with us and I would always admire the finesse with which she played. She was, and definitely still is, my koto idol and a dear family-friend. Watching her rehearse with Hiroshima brought me back to those days when I was young. It was such a warm feeling!

After our sound check, we ate some delicious food with the band. We spent a good amount of time hanging out with Shoji Kameda (former musical director of TAIKOPROJECT and composer of "Omiyage"), which was really nice. It was my first time formally meeting him! To be honest, I was a little star-struck...I hope I didn't act too much like a fan!

Finally it was show time! We performed "Seiza", "Enkai", and "Many Sides". Everything went pretty smoothly and it was a lot of fun! I could hear my small fan-base of family and friends cheering for us in the audience, thanks to my mom who invited almost everyone she knew (she's a huge TP fan).

It's been my dream to perform koto at a gig like this. I'm particularly grateful that I got to share the stage with my TAIKOPORJECT buddies! This was definitely a performance to remember :)