Interviews

1. Celebrating traditional Japanese New Years with family

2. Learning Japanese at school and at home with family

3. Developing an original kata

4. Introducing Taiko in Vancouver

5. The philosophy of playing Taiko

6. Defining a Taiko player

Hirabayashi,Roy

(b.1951) Co-founder and managing director of San Jose Taiko.

Introducing Taiko in Vancouver

I think it was 1979. We were invited to the Powell Street Festival. I’m not sure if that was the first festival they had or not. It might’ve been. But anyways, we were brought up there. Rick Shiyomi was up there at that time. Naturally, a lot of the Vancouver folks are there now. But they invited us up, and we went up there. It was like a community festival, but they had never really seen Taiko, at least the community itself. So it was great experience for us. We got to meet everyone. For them, they were really kind of excited about what we were doing as San Jose Taiko.

So after that, they decided they wanted to start Katari Taiko. They really became involved in doing that. That was really kind of great to see that kind of happen after just a short weekend experience of meeting people and sharing what we’re doing as a group and seeing other musicians in another community, especially in Vancouver, and kind of take off with it and start their own thing also.

Date: January 26, 2005

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Art Hansen, Sojin Kim

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Roy Hirabayashi, managing director and co-founder of San Jose Taiko, was born in Berkeley, California in 1951 to kibei parents. The middle of five children, he was raised in Oakland, California. After graduating from high school in 1969, he attended San Jose State University where he received degrees in psychology and philosophy.

He has worked for the San Jose State University Asian American Studies Program, Japanese American Citizens League, the Pacific Asian Coalition, and the Buddhist Churches of America. It was through his work with the YBA (Young Buddhists of America) that he became involved with taiko. Reverend Hiroshi Abiko of San Jose Buddhist Church asked Dean Miyakusu and him to start something for the youth after being inspired by Kinnara Taiko. They started the group and it has since evolved into one of the most influential taiko groups in the Americas. (January 26, 2005)