Celebrating our 45th Anniversary!

2024 is Soh Daiko’s 45th Anniversary year! We have been drumming in the basement of the New York Buddhist Church for four and a half decades, giving countless performances at events large and small and near and far. After a brief beginning as a youth group, Soh Daiko was formed in 1979 and became the first taiko ensemble on the East Coast of the United States. Over the years we’ve made appearances on Sesame Street, NBC’s Today Show, Saturday Night Live, and more, as well as sharing the love of taiko with audiences all across the tri-state area at cultural festivals.

This weekend we came together with former Soh Daiko members and friends to celebrate this milestone. We enjoyed a beautiful view, great company, delicious food, and a performance just for us.

In honor of our 45th Anniversary, we will be taking a trip down memory lane to celebrate our iconic repertoire from its early days to the present. Original compositions like Yuudachi and Hachidan and arrangements like Matsuri and Miyake have stood the test of time over our 45 year history. Though the music and spirit have endured, these pieces continue to evolve with the group and its members. Join us as we revisit videos of our favorite performances from the early days and recent years!

You can follow along at our Youtube channel HERE and on Instagram and Facebook with: #sohdaiko45th

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Introducing our new trainees!

Coming out of our recruitment workshops, we are excited to welcome eleven trainees for our 2023-2024 trainee class! Many, but not all, of our new recruits have played taiko previously, with experience in collegiate groups like Gendo Taiko, Swarthmore Taiko, Cal Raijin Taiko, and Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan, youth taiko groups like San Jose Junior Taiko, and even Asaka Daikol, a performing group in Japan!

But most important, all of our trainees show a great passion for taiko, learning, and performing. Over the next three months, they will join us for weekly rehearsals and learn Soh Daiko’s way through observation, drills, and dedicated trainee hours, honing in on Soh Daiko’s unique techniques and repertoire.

This is the biggest group of trainees we’ve taken on in years, and we can hardly wait to see what they accomplish!

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Soh Much Fun at the Soh Daiko Recruitment Workshops!

On Sept 23rd and 30th, Soh Daiko held our two recruitment workshops of the season, and we had a great turn out despite the rain! We were joined in the dojo by a diverse group of participants, including many who have played taiko in collegiate or community groups prior and several who were completely new to taiko. We worked with them through the basics of taiko, demonstrating our style and repertoire, and sent them home with an appreciation for taiko and Soh Daiko, and likely some blisters and sore muscles, too!

Workshop participants learned and demonstrated their skills in both beta (downstand) and yokouchi (upstand) styles, as well as joined us for vigorous warm up exercises and drills. At the end of each workshop, we circled up for a jam session to allow each participant to shine and to share our love for taiko with one another.

Thank you to all our participants for joining us! While we hope everyone learned a lot about our form of taiko, we also learned a lot from having new players and personalities join us in the dojo over the past two Saturdays, and soon we will be excited to announce our 2023 Trainee Group!

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