Kinnara Taiko

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Kinnara Taiko is a Japanese American drumming ensemble (playing taiko) based out of Senshin Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles, US. 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.^[1]

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.