Page 4 - MidWeek Kauai - Feb 9, 2022

4 KAUA‘I MIDWEEK FEBRUARY 9, 2022
The good vibrations keep coming from taiko virtuoso Kenny Endo, who lives life marching to the beat of his own drum.
Who else can say they’ve performed for Michael Jackson and Princess Diana, have a day proclaimed to them in Honolulu and, most recent- ly, be named to the United States Artists’ 2022 class of Fellows? None other than triple threat Kenny Endo, one of the world’s most pro- lific taiko performers, composers and teachers.
when Endo was recognized next to 63 fellow artists across 10 creative disciplines, including architecture and design, dance, film, traditional arts, visual art and writing. The or- ganization at the helm of the project, United States Artists, puts an em- phasis on supporting a broad reg- ister of creative people — an effort even more pertinent now given that some artistic avenues, like Endo’s performing arts, have taken a back- seat due to the pandemic.
s about playing the drums and was
even a member of his high schoo
t band and orchestra, but it wasn’t
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outside of Japan, in 1973 that he h
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d that “aha” moment, thinking, “This
Kenny Endo loves performing taiko, but he also enjoys teaching it to others interested in learning. PHOTO COURTESY KENNY ENDO
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Those grand feats only brush the surface of all that Endo has accom- plished. And while the latter is only the most recent, it was an honor, nonetheless. It was just last week
Long before his impressive list of accolades, though, Endo was just a boy in Los Angeles who was en- tranced by the beat of a drum.
is what I want to do with my life.” “When I saw taiko for the first time, it was the sound that you could feel down to your bones that Tpulled me in,” he recalls. “It was also part of my heritage that I want-
ethnically Japanese and my father was born there and my mother is a second-generation Japanese Amer- ican,” he shares. “I had an interest in meeting my relatives and learning more about my culture and taiko. Af- ter thinking about it, it was obvious that was the direction I wanted to go in.”
“When there were parades, I would always run down just to hear the cadence of the drums because I like that vibration,” he remembers.
early adulthood when he
As he entered his teenage years, Endo would jam out to rock’ n’ roll — namely The Who, Jimi Hendrix and Cream — and became rapt by other musical genres including jazz, funk and Latin. He was passionate
stood at a crossroad: Move to New York City to become a jazz drummer or take a leap of faith across the Pacific Ocean to study taiko in Japan.
What intended to be a one-year stay, wound up as an entire decade of complete immersion in the art of
ed to know more about.”
here came a time in Endo’s
“I felt that doing taiko would be a little more unique, and also I had an interest in going to Japan because I had never been there, although I’m
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