If you are having difficulty viewing this message, you can view the graphics version online at http://www.etaiko.org/news.htm.   Newsletter - April 2010   Next free lecture and hands-on demonstration: April 30 Taiko: What is it? Come find out at our free lecture and participatory demonstration on Friday, April 30 at 7pm. Please RSVP by email to info@etaiko.org. If you've ever wanted to know what it feels like to play the big drums, this is your chance!   Kids' classes May 1 through July 31 We are delighted to announce our next series of classes for kids 8 to 12 years old! Echo Costanzo (pictured) will be the instructor.   Classes will be held every Saturday from 9:45am to 10:35am. Students will learn basic rhythms, forms, principles and a song to perform.   New students will be accepted on May 1 and June 5. New students must attend a registration and orientation session at 9:30 am before their first class. Each class is $10 plus a one-time $5 registration fee (cash or check only, no debit or credit cards). Multi-class discount cards (5/$45 and 10/$80) are available. Please email info@etaiko.org to reserve a space.   New classes starting May 1 and May 6 Classes for beginners are held every Thursday from 7pm to 9pm and Saturday from 2pm to 4pm. We accept new students on the first Thursday and Saturday of each month. Please check the schedule below and go to the Classes page on our web site for complete and updated information.   New students are required to attend an orientation a half an hour before the first class. The class is $15 plus a one-time $5 registration fee (cash or check only, includes Member Handbook). Please email to let us know you're coming before attending your first class, and have a look at the new Frequently Asked Questions page on our web site.   Upcoming performances Saturday, April 17 Emeryville's Earth Day Celebration. Doyle-Hollis Park (between 61st, 62nd, Doyle, and Hollis Streets) will be transformed into a unique Earth Day party and environmental education center. We will perform from 12:15pm to 12:45pm.   Saturday, April 17 Morgan Hill NorCal Taiko Expo at the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center. We will perform from 3:30pm to 4:00pm.   Thursday, April 22 The Mills College Ethnic Studies Department is sponsoring a performance and participatory drumming experience with Emeryville Taiko at 7:00pm in the Student Union.   Sunday, April 25 Cupertino Cherry Blossom Festival at Memorial Park on Stevens Creek Boulevard across from De Anza College. As in past years we will be the closing act on Sunday, performing at 3:45pm.   Thursday, April 29 Asian American Heritage Month Performance Day at Laney College, 900 Fallon Street, Oakland, CA 94607, in the Quad. 12:10 to12:15pm.   Meet the Student: Gabriela Frank Emeryville Taiko: When did you start playing taiko, and what attracted you to it?   Gabriela Frank: Because of my early training in Aikido as a kid, and because my father used to regularly take me and my older brother to Japantown in SF to watch classic samurai movies (Go Akira!), I had always been vaguely aware of taiko. In grad school, training at the music conservatory, I caught an actual Kodo show, and was absolutely gobsmacked by them. Then, I forgot about taiko for a while. It wasn't until I was in the middle of a serious illness, one that lasted several years and involved a hard treatment course of radiation, drugs, and surgeries, that taiko came into my life again.   I was taking a rare walk during the annual Solano Stroll, and I saw a taiko demo. To be honest, I don't think it was Emeryville Taiko, but a smaller fledgling group that has since come and gone. Something about the diversity of the players, the joy, just caught me, and I was totally arrested. I'll never forget it because for just a few minutes, I completely forgot I was sick. When I came to and realized that I just had this transported moment, a reminder to think of myself post-illness, I was hooked. It took me a few years to finally get into a dojo, but here I am.   ET: You have a rich musical career outside of taiko. Will you please tell us some of the highlights--what instruments have you played and what styles of music have you composed throughout your life?   GF: Oh wow. Well, I'm primarily a concert pianist but can bleat and saw my way badly through most of the instruments of an orchestra, and many of the native instruments of the Andean nations of Bolivia, Perú, Ecuador... And my style of music is like me -- I'm mixed-race, so mestiza woman, mestiza music. I love how all of the gradations of fusion and inventiveness, gnarliness and accessibility allow me entrance to many different worlds as a result. I think of my job as figuring out how to bring people from such different backgrounds together to have a beautiful musical experience, and how to maintain ties to traditional roots while working in a contemporary vein. This often involves public outreach to new audiences as well. To date, I've written for all of the classical music genres out there -- symphonic, choral, chamber, vocal, solo -- and am about to tackle my first opera! And I've also written for folkloric musicians who don't read or write music but who are simply world-class level artists.   You were asking about highlights: Bueno, I remember my first Carnegie Hall commission was very moving to me because I thought of my Jewish grandmother, Lucy Frank, who was a frustrated pianist, and how happy she would have been. My first trip to Perú where I connected with native musicians there is very memorable to me. My first performance with a Top Five symphony orchestra. The day I signed up with my publisher/agents at G. Schirmer, who are just excellent. Having the privilege to be the subject of a PBS documentary recently. Good reviews from certain über-tough critics. An unexpected Latin Grammy last year. (I didn't go to the ceremony, so sure I was that I wasn't going to win! I watched it from home.) Receiving praise from former teachers whose good opinions will always matter hugely to me. Stuff like that are all incredible highlights, and I'm very lucky.   ET: How does your musical background affect your approach to taiko?   GF: I'm fascinated by the mix of traditions, and many of the challenges we see in taiko are the same ones I see in work. There are indeed universal themes and so I'm approaching taiko with that perspective.   ET: How does it feel to be a beginner at a musical discipline, when you have dedicated your life to other forms of music?   GF: It's teaching me humility! I'm vastly ignorant and unpracticed. I have to not get mad when I mess up, and I mess up frequently. And I'm learning patience in the speed at which I'm improving. I have to also be careful to have an open mind so that I can learn taiko on its own terms, not automatically feed it through the creative mill that I've fashioned in my own brain over the years. Yet, there are a lot of fundamentals in common -- in the early days of my conservatory training, I remember the withering looks when I couldn't keep a good sense of pulse, or when I played wrong notes, skipped beats, couldn't maintain a smooth singing line, wasn't a true musical partner for a colleague, exhibited bad form, or started too early... Soooooo many sins I committed! And I'm seeing that these are factors in taiko, too. Back in the day, I would put in 6-7 hours a day practicing piano to address these "sins", then another few hours working on composing in order to gain mastery. I'm still not a "master" as a musician, but I keep at it. And I'd like to do what I humbly can to take my taiko steps, too.   ET: Do you have any plans to compose a taiko song?   GF: Oh... Guilty as charged! That said, there are a LOT of composers in this dojo! Tons of creative energy here.   ET: What are you working on currently?   GF: Well, I have a number of open projects right now. It's a juggling game to keep them apart from one another so I don't write the same piece over and over again, and with taiko in the blend now, I especially have to watch it so that little Masaru, Saidai, and Oaktown rhythms don't creep in there! I just finished a large percussion ensemble piece (funnily enough) and a violin concerto. Next week, I'll turn in a piece that involves Chinese instruments, and the week after that, will start a large song cycle for soprano and orchestra based on texts by the playwright Nilo Cruz.   ET: Are there any upcoming opportunities to hear your music?   GF: Yes, sure. Locally, things really blossomed this past year. I was very lucky this past season. I had performances with SF Symphony and Berkeley Symphony, and I'm composer-in-residence with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra for a while, so there will be many upcoming performances with them -- that violin concerto I mentioned will have its first run of performances in May, for instance. I do the occasional piano recital with talking from time to time; there's an event at the Berkeley Hillside club on April 16th, and another on April 26 at Berkeley's Freight and Salvage. Admittedly, I can be really bad about telling people if something's coming up... My family and friends have gotten mad at me when they read about something the next day in the paper or online, oops... I should probably just do a private piano concert or something for my new friends at Emeryville Taiko!   ET: When you're not composing or playing music, how else do you spend your time?   GF: A friend of mine calls me an "urban homesteader", ha ha... Because I'm on the road so much, I really treasure my time at home, so I have all of these homebound hobbies -- Canning, pickling, making cheese, making face lotions and soaps with stuff from our local farms. Been getting into hiking, though, in an effort to slim down. And spending time with my friends and family is huge for me. I'm a voracious history buff, too.   For information about Gabriela's April 16 performance at the Hillside Club: https://sites.google.com/a/hillsideclub.org/hillsideclub/upcoming-events/awomansvoicegabrielalenafrank%E2%80%94musicamestiza-1   And April 26 at the Freight and Salvage: http://www.freightandsalvage.org/classical-freight-gabriela-frank-robin-sharp   To read more about Gabriela and her work:   http://www.sfcv.org/article/joint-interview-with-berkeley-symphonysbrnew-director-and-its-creative-advisor   http://www.wfyi.org/peregrinos.asp   http://www.yowangdu.com/the-world/north-america/gabriela-lena-frank.html   http://newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=5514   Welcome new students We would like to welcome our new students to the Beginning 1 and Kid's classes:   Ai, Chela, Jim, Daphne, Lori, Ryan, Irene, Charlyn.   We also had a one-time visiting student last Saturday afternoon, Ryan's cousin Eoin, who was on spring break from Ohio.   Thank you for bringing your energy and inspiration to the group!   Class schedule Beginning 1 classes: Thursdays 7pm to 9pm, Saturdays 2pm to 4pm New students accepted April 1 at 6:30pm and April 3 at 1:30pm   Beginning 2 classes: Tuesdays 7pm to 9pm, Saturdays 11am to 1pm Intermediate classes: Mondays 7pm to 9pm, Wednesdays 7pm to 9pm   Note: No classes on Saturday, April 17 as we will be doing 2 performances that day   Classes are held at: Emery Secondary School Shop B 1100 47th Street at San Pablo Avenue Emeryville, CA 94608   Our classes are in the Shop B space on the northwest corner of the San Pablo/47th Street intersection. There is plenty of parking along 47th Street west of San Pablo. Enter through the big roll-up steel door on 47th. Click here for a map and directions.   Kid's Class Performance, March 27 The kids' class performed the song "Isamigoma" for families and Emeryville Taiko students on Saturday, March 27, the culmination of their three-month series of classes. New kids' classes are starting in May.   Photos by David Lingren   Oakland Running Festival, March 28 We set up at mile 17 of the marathon and played (appropriately) "Oaktown Boogie" for the participants as they ran by. There's one part of the song in which we wave our bachi over our heads, and the runners all waved back at us!   Photos by Adrian Martin, Denise Ng and Katherine Kunz   Support us Emeryville Taiko is a San Francisco Bay Area taiko group providing traditional Japanese drumming classes and performances. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible and your financial support is appreciated. You can donate online at our website.